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The Government of Ireland, in the White Paper on Energy2, set a target for a 20% reduction in energy usage across the whole economy by 2020. This moves energy efficiency to the centre of Government energy policy. The scale of the task ahead is highlighted by the fact that between 1990 and 2005 final energy demand increased by 64%. This is the first SEI/EPSSU report that focuses exclusively on Energy Efficiency in Ireland. The purpose of the report is to provide timely and comprehensive data on energy efficiency and intensity, in order to provide context and background to discussions regarding future policy options. The analysis in this report has benefited greatly from SEI/EPSSU’s involvement in the pan European Odyssee project3.
The project was set up in 1993 through a joint collaboration between ADEME, the SAVE programme of the General Directorate of the European Commission in charge of energy and all energy efficiency agencies in the EU-15 and Norway. The project was designed to collect and improve data relating to energy usage drivers, energy efficiency and CO2 related indicators. The Odyssee project is co-ordinated by ADEME with the technical support of ENERDATA4 and the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research 5. A key development within the Odyssee project has been the formulation of a new set of energy efficiency indicators, known as ODEX. ODEX indicators provide an alternative to the usual energy intensities used to assess energy efficiency changes at the sectoral or economy level, as they include factors only related to energy-efficiency and exclude the changes in energy use due to other effects such as climate fluctuations, changes in economic and industry structures, lifestyle changes etc. In particular, SEI/EPSSU gratefully acknowledges the contribution of Bruno Lapillonne of ENERDATA for his assistance in developing specific energy efficiency indicators for Ireland presented in this report.
Download Report (2007) (68 pages; 1.2MB PDF)
