IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/rensus/v151y2021ics136403212100856x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do energy efficiency networks help reduce barriers to energy efficiency? -A case study of a regional Swedish policy program for industrial SMEs

Author

Listed:
  • Jalo, Noor
  • Johansson, Ida
  • Kanchiralla, Fayas Malik
  • Thollander, Patrik

Abstract

Improved energy efficiency is one of the key elements to decouple energy-related emissions from economic growth. Since the energy management practices in small and medium-sized enterprises are underdeveloped, most of the energy efficiency potential is left untapped. Studies show that several barriers pertaining to economic, technological, and organizational systems lead to poor implementation rates of energy efficiency measures. An energy efficiency network is considered effective in overcoming these barriers and promoting energy management practices in small and medium-sized enterprises. This paper explores the role of energy efficiency networks, and specifically the role of its functions in overcoming the identified barriers from literature. This study was carried out as a multiple case study including 13 industrial small and medium-sized enterprises using semi-structured interviews with participants from companies in a Swedish regional energy efficiency network program. Results show that energy efficiency networks are effective in overcoming some of the barriers to energy efficiency implementation and that the present functions are effective in addressing some barriers faced by small and medium-sized enterprises, e.g., energy efficiency implementation barriers such as lack of time and resources. However, some barriers still remain as constraints for energy efficiency implementation, even after energy efficiency network participation.

Suggested Citation

  • Jalo, Noor & Johansson, Ida & Kanchiralla, Fayas Malik & Thollander, Patrik, 2021. "Do energy efficiency networks help reduce barriers to energy efficiency? -A case study of a regional Swedish policy program for industrial SMEs," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:151:y:2021:i:c:s136403212100856x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2021.111579
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136403212100856X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.rser.2021.111579?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paramonova, Svetlana & Thollander, Patrik, 2016. "Energy-efficiency networks for SMEs: Learning from the Swedish experience," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 295-307.
    2. Gruber, Edelgard & Brand, Michael, 1991. "Promoting energy conservation in small and medium-sized companies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 279-287, April.
    3. Anderson, Soren T. & Newell, Richard G., 2004. "Information programs for technology adoption: the case of energy-efficiency audits," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 27-50, March.
    4. Mette Talseth Solnørdal & Lene Foss, 2018. "Closing the Energy Efficiency Gap—A Systematic Review of Empirical Articles on Drivers to Energy Efficiency in Manufacturing Firms," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-30, February.
    5. Rohdin, P. & Thollander, P., 2006. "Barriers to and driving forces for energy efficiency in the non-energy intensive manufacturing industry in Sweden," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 31(12), pages 1836-1844.
    6. Backlund, Sandra & Thollander, Patrik & Palm, Jenny & Ottosson, Mikael, 2012. "Extending the energy efficiency gap," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 392-396.
    7. Thollander, Patrik & Danestig, Maria & Rohdin, Patrik, 2007. "Energy policies for increased industrial energy efficiency: Evaluation of a local energy programme for manufacturing SMEs," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(11), pages 5774-5783, November.
    8. Palm, Jenny & Thollander, Patrik, 2010. "An interdisciplinary perspective on industrial energy efficiency," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 87(10), pages 3255-3261, October.
    9. Trianni, Andrea & Cagno, Enrico & Farné, Stefano, 2016. "Barriers, drivers and decision-making process for industrial energy efficiency: A broad study among manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 1537-1551.
    10. Cagno, E. & Worrell, E. & Trianni, A. & Pugliese, G., 2013. "A novel approach for barriers to industrial energy efficiency," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 290-308.
    11. Joachim Schleich, 2004. "Do energy audits help reduce barriers to energy efficiency? An empirical analysis for Germany," International Journal of Energy Technology and Policy, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 2(3), pages 226-239.
    12. Thollander, P. & Svensson, I.L. & Trygg, L., 2010. "Analyzing variables for district heating collaborations between energy utilities and industries," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(9), pages 3649-3656.
    13. Rohdin, Patrik & Thollander, Patrik & Solding, Petter, 2007. "Barriers to and drivers for energy efficiency in the Swedish foundry industry," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 672-677, January.
    14. Trianni, Andrea & Cagno, Enrico & Worrell, Ernst, 2013. "Innovation and adoption of energy efficient technologies: An exploratory analysis of Italian primary metal manufacturing SMEs," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 430-440.
    15. Fayas Malik Kanchiralla & Noor Jalo & Simon Johnsson & Patrik Thollander & Maria Andersson, 2020. "Energy End-Use Categorization and Performance Indicators for Energy Management in the Engineering Industry," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-24, January.
    16. A S M Monjurul Hasan & Andrea Trianni, 2020. "A Review of Energy Management Assessment Models for Industrial Energy Efficiency," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-21, November.
    17. Trianni, Andrea & Cagno, Enrico & Worrell, Ernst & Pugliese, Giacomo, 2013. "Empirical investigation of energy efficiency barriers in Italian manufacturing SMEs," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 444-458.
    18. Fredrik Backman, 2017. "Barriers to Energy Efficiency in Swedish Non-Energy-Intensive Micro- and Small-Sized Enterprises—A Case Study of a Local Energy Program," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-13, January.
    19. Fleiter, Tobias & Worrell, Ernst & Eichhammer, Wolfgang, 2011. "Barriers to energy efficiency in industrial bottom-up energy demand models--A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 3099-3111, August.
    20. Jaffe, Adam B. & Stavins, Robert N., 1994. "The energy-efficiency gap What does it mean?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(10), pages 804-810, October.
    21. Viesi, Diego & Pozzar, Francesca & Federici, Alessandro & Crema, Luigi & Mahbub, Md Shahriar, 2017. "Energy efficiency and sustainability assessment of about 500 small and medium-sized enterprises in Central Europe region," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 363-374.
    22. Ida Johansson & Nawzad Mardan & Erwin Cornelis & Osamu Kimura & Patrik Thollander, 2019. "Designing Policies and Programmes for Improved Energy Efficiency in Industrial SMEs," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-17, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marta Daroń & Monika Górska, 2023. "Relationships between Selected Quality Tools and Energy Efficiency in Production Processes," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(13), pages 1-20, June.
    2. Kelly M. Smith & Stephen Wilson & Paul Lant & Maureen E. Hassall, 2022. "How Do We Learn about Drivers for Industrial Energy Efficiency—Current State of Knowledge," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-26, April.
    3. Zhang, Hongsheng & Liu, Xingang & Hao, Ruijun & Liu, Chengjun & Liu, Yifeng & Duan, Chenghong & Qin, Jiyun, 2022. "Thermodynamic performance study on gas-steam cogeneration systems with different configurations based on condensed waste heat utilization," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 250(C).
    4. Gema Millán & Yassine Rqiq & Erudino Llano & Víctor Ballestín & Lisa Neusel & Antoine Durand & Josephine Tröger & Fabrizio Lamberti & Federico De Lorenzis & Maurizio Repetto, 2022. "Energy Efficiency Engagement Training in SMEs: A Case Study in the Automotive Sector," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-15, August.
    5. Xiong, Yongqing & Cheng, Qian, 2023. "Effects of new energy vehicle adoption on provincial energy efficiency in China: From the perspective of regional imbalances," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 281(C).
    6. Mehdi Bensouda & Mimoun Benali & Ghada Moufdi & Taoufik El Bouzekri El Idrissi & Abdelhamid El Bouhadi, 2023. "Energy Audit as an Instrument to Tackle Internal Barriers to Energy Efficiency: Lessons from Moroccan Industrial Firms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-19, July.
    7. Noor Jalo & Ida Johansson & Mariana Andrei & Therese Nehler & Patrik Thollander, 2021. "Barriers to and Drivers of Energy Management in Swedish SMEs," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-21, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thollander, Patrik & Backlund, Sandra & Trianni, Andrea & Cagno, Enrico, 2013. "Beyond barriers – A case study on driving forces for improved energy efficiency in the foundry industries in Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and Sweden," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 636-643.
    2. Mette Talseth Solnørdal & Lene Foss, 2018. "Closing the Energy Efficiency Gap—A Systematic Review of Empirical Articles on Drivers to Energy Efficiency in Manufacturing Firms," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-30, February.
    3. Ida Johansson & Nawzad Mardan & Erwin Cornelis & Osamu Kimura & Patrik Thollander, 2019. "Designing Policies and Programmes for Improved Energy Efficiency in Industrial SMEs," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-17, April.
    4. Noor Jalo & Ida Johansson & Mariana Andrei & Therese Nehler & Patrik Thollander, 2021. "Barriers to and Drivers of Energy Management in Swedish SMEs," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-21, October.
    5. Olsthoorn, Mark & Schleich, Joachim & Hirzel, Simon, 2017. "Adoption of Energy Efficiency Measures for Non-residential Buildings: Technological and Organizational Heterogeneity in the Trade, Commerce and Services Sector," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 240-254.
    6. Trianni, Andrea & Cagno, Enrico & Worrell, Ernst, 2013. "Innovation and adoption of energy efficient technologies: An exploratory analysis of Italian primary metal manufacturing SMEs," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 430-440.
    7. Apriani Soepardi & Pratikto Pratikto & Purnomo Budi Santoso & Ishardita Pambudi Tama & Patrik Thollander, 2018. "Linking of Barriers to Energy Efficiency Improvement in Indonesia’s Steel Industry," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-22, January.
    8. Solnørdal, Mette Talseth & Thyholdt, Sverre Braathen, 2019. "Absorptive capacity and energy efficiency in manufacturing firms – An empirical analysis in Norway," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 978-990.
    9. Hasan, A S M Monjurul & Tuhin, Rashedul Amin & Ullah, Mahfuz & Sakib, Taiyeb Hasan & Thollander, Patrik & Trianni, Andrea, 2021. "A comprehensive investigation of energy management practices within energy intensive industries in Bangladesh," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 232(C).
    10. Jafarzadeh, Sepideh & Utne, Ingrid Bouwer, 2014. "A framework to bridge the energy efficiency gap in shipping," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 603-612.
    11. Trianni, Andrea & Cagno, Enrico & Farné, Stefano, 2016. "Barriers, drivers and decision-making process for industrial energy efficiency: A broad study among manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 1537-1551.
    12. Herrera, Bernardo & Amell, Andrés & Chejne, Farid & Cacua, Karen & Manrique, Raiza & Henao, Wilson & Vallejo, Gabriel, 2017. "Use of thermal energy and analysis of barriers to the implementation of thermal efficiency measures in cement production: Exploratory study in Colombia," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 140(P1), pages 1047-1058.
    13. Fleiter, Tobias & Schleich, Joachim & Ravivanpong, Ployplearn, 2012. "Adoption of energy-efficiency measures in SMEs—An empirical analysis based on energy audit data from Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 863-875.
    14. Tobias Fleitera & Joachim Schleich & Ployplearn Ravivanpong, 2012. "Adoption of energy-efficiency measures in SMEs - An empirical analysis based on energy audit data," Post-Print hal-00805748, HAL.
    15. Backlund, Sandra & Thollander, Patrik & Palm, Jenny & Ottosson, Mikael, 2012. "Extending the energy efficiency gap," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 392-396.
    16. Paramonova, Svetlana & Thollander, Patrik, 2016. "Energy-efficiency networks for SMEs: Learning from the Swedish experience," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 295-307.
    17. Kalantzis, Fotios & Revoltella, Debora, 2019. "How energy audits promote SMEs' energy efficiency investment," EIB Working Papers 2019/02, European Investment Bank (EIB).
    18. Joakim Haraldsson & Maria T. Johansson, 2019. "Barriers to and Drivers for Improved Energy Efficiency in the Swedish Aluminium Industry and Aluminium Casting Foundries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-27, April.
    19. Olsthoorn, Mark & Schleich, Joachim & Klobasa, Marian, 2015. "Barriers to electricity load shift in companies: A survey-based exploration of the end-user perspective," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 32-42.
    20. Marlene Preiß, 2021. "Treiber und Hemmnisse betrieblicher Effizienzmaßnahmen – Vernetzung als Erfolgsfaktor [Drivers and barriers of operational efficiency measures—networking as a success factor]," Sustainability Nexus Forum, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 93-106, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:151:y:2021:i:c:s136403212100856x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.