EN Official Journal of the European Union C 318/39

Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on ‘Enhancing energy efficiency policies and programmes by end users’ (Own-initiative opinion)

2009/C 318/08

Rapporteur: Mr CAPPELLINI

On 10 July 2008 the European Economic and Social Committee, acting under Rule 29(2) of its Rules of Procedure, decided to draw up an own-initiative opinion on

‘Enhancing energy efficiency policies and programmes by end users’

The Section for Transport, Energy, Infrastructure and the Information Society, which was responsible for preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 8 September 2009. The rapporteur was Mr CAPPELLINI.

At its 456th plenary session, held on 30 September and 1 October 2009 (meeting of 1 October 2009), the European Economic and Social Committee adopted the following opinion by 126 votes and 2 abstentions.

1. Conclusions and recommendations

1.1 Over the past term the EESC has been working on the various issues covered by European energy efficiency policies and the different aspects thereof (external dimension, short- and long-term energy challenges, supply and security policies) with a view to achieving an economically-viable, sustainable energy policy. It would stress the importance of promoting and building on the results of the EESC's energy efficiency days, in cooperation with all stakeholders, end users and Member States. In view of this, it calls on the Commission and the new Parliament to act firmly on the recommendations already made in previous opinions (1).

1.2 In addition, the EESC feels that implementation of an energy policy promoting efficiency and new ‘clean’ technologies could be a solution not just to the environmental issue but also as regards reducing dependence on energy supply and coping with the high costs of raw materials and the effects thereof on end users. The European Economic and Social Committee recommends stepping up endeavours focusing on systematically involving end users (in particular consumers and small businesses) with regard to the new constraints established by the March 2007 European Council and efforts to mitigate the current economic crisis.

1.3 The EESC believes that the European and national social partnership will encourage greater involvement of energy end users, particularly small businesses and their representative bodies, forms of public and private partnership at local level, and cooperatives, contributing more effectively to the achievement of European energy-efficiency targets and the green economy. This commitment, if addressed in the most appropriate context – for example within the European social dialogue agenda (including at sectoral level) – could make a practical contribution to increasing jobs and creating new skilled occupations related to the energy sector and the distribution of new services.

1.4 The EESC thinks that the decision to strengthen the European dimension of energy policies should also encourage reinforcement in the Internal Market and the domestic markets of a sustainable development strategy as well as greater cooperation in science and technology capable of reviving public and private investment, which could take the form of enhanced cooperation between EU Member States.

1.5 The EESC is disappointed and concerned at the shortage of homogenous, detailed information and data on end-use energy efficiency. This makes it difficult to define statistically-sound, harmonised indicators, not least because of the scarcity of historical data at European level accessible to end users. The EESC reiterates its concern at Member States’ failure to draw up the National Energy Efficiency Action Plans (NEEAP), provided for by the Directive in question, in time.

1.6 The EESC therefore feels it is necessary and urgent, in order to encourage full, uniform and more rigorous implementation at national level of European energy-efficiency policies, to adopt – in cooperation with the Commission and the Member States and after systematically consulting the bodies representing end users – a widely-accepted European monitoring system that is both fair and makes energy bills easier to understand and compare.

1.7 In addition, the EESC believes that the sectoral dimension of European energy-efficiency policies needs to be reinforced if they are to be better implemented, and to allow for more substantial monitoring and impact analysis in respect of these policies. The impact of energy policy differs according to the kind of economic activity, both as regards businesses which use energy (whose issues vary according to consumption levels, the kind of processes etc.), and as regards businesses which operate in the various sectors of the energy chain (e.g. plant producers and installers, energy providers, construction companies etc.), where there is huge untapped potential for saving energy.

1.8 Moreover, the EESC firmly believes that European programmes such as the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP), Intelligent Energy Europe (IEE) and others urgently need to be simplified, and this cannot be put off; end users should be more involved in these programmes whose measures should be more coherent and integrated (as is the case, for example, with the ECAP programme). A new integrated programme is therefore proposed, capable of better coordinating these activities for the benefit of end users. The EESC calls on the EU, the Member States and businesses to invest sufficient resources in applied energy research and its transfer to the end user; in generating savings from using the new information and communication technologies (ICT) in the technical and high-tech professions; and in energy development and innovation; and recommends more inclusive global cooperation in this area.

1.9 The EESC feels that the EU should urgently adopt tax and credit-access instruments and policies more geared to supporting energy saving, thereby facilitating all end users, particularly SMEs and public-private partnerships, which (individually or collectively) use more efficient, sustainable production models. Aware of the key role played by education and training in disseminating a European energy-efficiency culture, the European Economic and Social Committee proposes to launch an extraordinary consultation with the social partners and all stakeholders at European and national level in order to redirect existing EU funds, reinforcing professional skills and profiles associated with energy efficiency, and to encourage provision of information to the general public and awareness-raising.

2. Objectives of European Directive 2006/32/EC

2.1 The objective of European Directive 2006/32/EC was: — ‘improved energy end-use efficiency’, in order to help increase security of energy supply; and — to mitigate CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions to tackle climate change and exploit potential cost-effective energy savings in an economically efficient way, also boosting innovation and competitiveness. To this end, the Directive lays down a number of general objectives, including: — providing Member States with the indicative saving targets and suitable mechanisms for reaching them; — defining institutional, financial and legal frameworks to remove market barriers and imperfections that impede the efficient end use of energy; — creating the conditions for development of a market for energy services, particularly for SMEs; and — achieving an overall national indicative energy savings target of 9 % for the ninth year of application of this Directive, to be reached by means of energy services and other energy-efficiency improvement measures.

3. General comments

3.1 The implementation phase of Directive 2006/32/EC fell short of the initial ambitious targets set by the Commission, for the following reasons:

— some measures were too ineffective and easy to get round when transposing the Directive into national legislation;

— National Action Plans and national transposal measures which were less coherent and effective than provided for in the Directive;

— flanking programmes and measures that were piecemeal and insufficiently coordinated;

— the lack of homogeneous data and information, essential to monitor and assess the impact of the Directive on end users, meant that the initiative was utterly inadequate and incapable of facilitating coherent, sustainable development of energy efficiency in the EU.

Experience is showing that only a few of the 27 EU Member States have implemented robust, structured energy policies providing incentives for energy efficiency and development of renewable sources, and launched a process of developing new sectors related to these technologies, thus helping to reduce the cost of energy for small businesses and families.

In its Green Paper Towards a secure, sustainable and competitive European energy network (2), the Commission argues for the establishment of a European Transmission System Operator.

In three recent opinions (3), the EESC expressed the view that studies should be carried on the feasibility of a European energy service of general interest which could be harnessed for the common energy policy. In brief, in these opinions the EESC holds that this debate must be held in advance, because services of this kind will be an expression of European solidarity and a response to the challenges which will face the Union in essential, multinational or transnational areas such as security of energy supply, management of water resources, preservation of biodiversity, maintenance of air quality, internal and external security etc. The existence of Community services of this kind would prompt an awareness on the part of all end users of their responsibility.

3.2 End users and Europe's vision for energy policy

The considerable delay in a number of Member States in achieving energy-efficiency targets and the ongoing severe economic crisis confirm the urgent need for more coordinated, planned and joined-up measures aimed at deploying EU and Member State resources and bringing about the recovery of public and private investments. A sustainable development strategy and vision, based on the principles of efficiency, distributed generation and new ‘clean energy’ sources (including biomass) – with the results being pooled at European level among Member States and the bodies representing end users – could help avoid dispersal of the research activities which are necessary alongside the many international endeavours.

A major aspect of combating the economic crisis and reinvigorating energy-efficiency policies and related investment policies is rethinking European taxation and credit policies to cater for the needs of end users, the credit sector and energy operators, as well as of the local administrations concerned, furthering the development of the Energy Service Companies scheme at European level.

3.3 The culture and new knowledge surrounding energy efficiency from the point of view of end users

General and sectoral information is clearly lacking, as is an assessment of the impact of EU energy-efficiency policies on end users (particularly SMEs and other stakeholders), and a methodology that would make it possible to verify consistency between international and European targets. A process for monitoring the results obtained by these end users is also needed.

An initial check carried out in a number of Member States revealed that the availability of data on industrial production and energy use is greatly restricted by the lack of detailed information.

Hence the need to launch sample surveys to collect data and define the indicators needed to monitor and assess end-use and service energy efficiency, so as to be able to measure the impact of the Directive itself on the strategies and measures implemented in each Member State.

3.4 Energy efficiency indicators and the needs of end users

The Commission and the Member States could – inter alia, by setting up an independent expert task force – also support and encourage the definition of harmonised, reliable indicators for quantifying and evaluating the energy savings that can be made by using new information and communication technologies. These indicators, which must be easy to understand, could provide end users with a guarantee, of which they in turn could make appropriate use. This approach would also help to stem the growth in fraudulent or misleading use of such concepts as ‘green’ or ‘clean’ energy as a pure marketing strategy with no real justification that can be demonstrated and quantified in terms of savings and reducing emissions, while also preventing unfair commercial practices.

3.5 Integrated monitoring systems and observatories pooled by all of the Member States would, in particular, give the EU and the Member States the possibility of:

— developing a European expert task force and a network of independent energy-efficiency bodies for end users, particularly businesses (especially SMEs and the craft sector);

— producing periodic reports on EU policies and their impact on end users (especially SMEs);

— an information platform in several languages which is easy to use and easily accessible; and consolidating and enhancing relations between European and national representative organisations and main stakeholders.

3.6 Overcoming the delays and deficiencies in the preparation of the NEEAP

The national action plans (NEEAP) suggest that the Member States have not made substantial, serious efforts to achieve the targets laid down by the Directive (they are often very vague and short of information and scientific indicators for accurately assessing the potential impact of the proposed measures and unsuited to meeting the objectives of the Directive) especially as regards reducing consumption in the most significant areas – transport and housing. Hence the need for energy-efficiency initiatives to be more tangible and feasible and the need to make at least some measures more binding, ascertaining the disparities between the national plans and the actual results, as happened in the case of vehicle emissions, the reduction of CO2 emissions in general and greenhouse gas emissions and renewable energies.

The Commission's recent online consultation process – Public Consultation on the Evaluation and Revision of the Action Plan for Energy Efficiency [COM(2006) 545] – highlights the Directive's shortcomings as regards the consultation of end users. An annual report, to which the EESC could also contribute, based on a suitable methodology for consulting all end users, could be a means of overcoming some of the deficiencies in the preparation of the NEEAP.

3.7 New generation of more end-user-friendly EU programmes

The procedures for accessing the relevant programmes (CIP, and particularly IEE) need to be simplified, to make them more accessible to very small businesses and their representative associations and to administrations in disadvantaged areas (mountainous and peripheral regions). Moreover, the Committee advocates encouraging public-private partnerships and ESCOs (energy service companies), in particular at European, national and local levels, by facilitating the involvement of SMEs in the actual implementation of the European Green Public Procurement policy. In addition, as part of the simplification and better regulation process, the Commission, along with representatives of European and national end-user bodies, is asked to look into which procedures and practices are most effective to support end users and stakeholders concerned by the Directive when it comes to implementing energy-efficiency policies.

4. Specific comments

4.1 The Directive gives energy operators a role in the energy services sector (Article 6). This provision is particularly negative as in many national markets large energy operators have operated in niches downstream in the energy chain, such as energy services and ‘post metering’ activities, gaining an advantage by virtue of their dominant position in other stages in the chain (production, distribution, sales) and creating substantial barriers to the development of the energy services sector for small businesses.

4.1.1 The process of transposing the Directive into national legislation is still beset by significant problems and shortcomings as regards end users, in respect of: — the availability and transparency of the information useful for implementing energy services (often exclusively reserved for energy operators and the competent authorities) – Article 7; and the — correct metering and informative billing of energy consumption. Greater surveillance, monitoring and penalty measures are therefore needed from the relevant national and EU bodies, along with more effective, rigorous monitoring of energy operators (see Articles 11 and 13 of the Directive).

4.1.2 The efficiency of the means of access to ‘financial instruments for energy savings’ and the functioning of the relevant ‘mechanisms’ should be reinforced and further developed technically and politically, for the benefit of end users, with particular regard to energy taxation. These instruments and their results should be specifically monitored in close cooperation with European and national end-user bodies and with particular regard to ways of mitigating the rebound effect. The rebound effect, as emerged at the EESC hearing on ‘Enhancing energy efficiency policies and programmes by end users’, held at the Italian National Council for Economy and Labour (CNEL) on 9 July 2009, refers to the fact that measures taken to improve energy efficiency can sometimes increase rather than decrease energy consumption.

4.1.3 The energy audits and white certificates (Article 12) are also particularly important for the development of energy services and should therefore be further reinforced by the Member States. European social dialogue, including at sectoral level, should also make a useful contribution here to the implementation of energy efficiency policies, thus fostering employment and increasing the competitiveness of the productive system.

4.1.4 Calculation methods are laid down for measuring energy savings. These methods have yet to be properly developed and harmonised. Thus, better definition is needed of calculation methods to be shared with end users and harmonised among the Member States. Lastly, the Commission has launched numerous infringement procedures for failure to transpose all or part of the Directive: the costs and red tape arising from this will be passed on to end users.

Brussels, 1 October 2009. The President of the European Economic and Social Committee Mario SEPI

(1) OJ C 77 of 31.3.2009, p. 54; OJ C 175 of 28.7.2009, p. 87; OJ C 228 of 22.9.2009, p. 84; OJ C 182 of 4.8.2009, p. 8.

(2) COM(2008) 782 final/2.

(3) OJ C 175 of 28.7.2009, p. 43; EESC opinion on the Green Paper – Towards a secure, sustainable and competitive European energy network - CESE 1029/2009 (not yet published), and EESC opinion in preparation on Services of general economic interest: how should responsibilities be divided up between the EU and the Member States? - CESE 966/2009 (not yet published in the Official Journal).