Practices to collect and assess data on energy audits and energy management systems to inform the implementation of the European Energy Efficiency Directive

Abstract

The European Union’s revised Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) obliges certain enterprises to conduct an energy audit or introduce an energy management system. This political instrument is expected to contribute to achieving the energy saving targets set by the European Union. However, the lack of comparable data in EU Member States complicates evaluations of its impact. A comparative analysis based on a collaboration between energy agencies from ten Member States shows different collection practices and varying availability of data on enterprises reporting an energy audit or energy management system. This indicates the need for harmonisation and standardisation of reporting processes and data collection to inform policy making. Furthermore, the analysis shows varying interpretations across Member States regarding the indicators on energy audits to be reported in their National Energy and Climate Progress Reports (NECPRs). To ensure good data quality in the NECPR database, the European Environment Agency should adopt guidelines and clear definitions for these indicators. The NECPR indicators proposed in this paper can serve as a basis for the European Commission to update reporting indicators under the revised EED. Moreover, Member States could agree to further harmonise their monitoring practices, including collecting and sharing data supplementary to the indicators reported via the NECPR. This paper suggests that they agree on a basic data set collected through their national procedures to monitor the energy audit and energy management system obligation under the EED. This paper proposes indicators for a basic data set to enable valuable impact analyses of this obligation.