IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/eibwps/201906.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Promoting energy audits: Results from an experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Brutscher, Philipp-Bastian
  • Ravillard, Pauline

Abstract

Energy audits are key to increase investments in energy efficiency, as they allow to overcome the 'information gap'- one of the biggest obstacles to this type of investment. However, on average only 30% of SMEs said to have carried out an energy audit between 2015 and 2018. This paper assesses the effectiveness of policy interventions in promoting energy audits by relying on evidence from a unique online experiment, as part of the European Investment Bank's annual Investment Survey. 1,178 EU firms were asked about their willingness to invest in an energy audit, given different scenarios of randomly drawn policy interventions. These are a level of support, whether it comes in the form of a grant or a tax credit, and whether the audit is conditional on investing in an energy efficiency project after. Findings allow us to quantify by how much the probability that firms invest in energy audits increases, as the combinations of policy interventions vary.

Suggested Citation

  • Brutscher, Philipp-Bastian & Ravillard, Pauline, 2019. "Promoting energy audits: Results from an experiment," EIB Working Papers 2019/06, European Investment Bank (EIB).
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:eibwps:201906
    DOI: 10.2867/65932
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/203432/1/1676289178.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2867/65932?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicholas Tsounis & Aspasia Vlachvei (ed.), 2017. "Advances in Applied Economic Research," Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics, Springer, number 978-3-319-48454-9, December.
    2. de Groot, Henri L. F. & Verhoef, Erik T. & Nijkamp, Peter, 2001. "Energy saving by firms: decision-making, barriers and policies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 717-740, November.
    3. Murphy, Lorraine, 2014. "The influence of energy audits on the energy efficiency investments of private owner-occupied households in the Netherlands," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 398-407.
    4. Brutscher, Philipp-Bastian & Heipertz, Jonas & Hols, Christopher, 2017. "Loan characteristics, firm preferences and investment: Evidence from a unique experiment," EIB Working Papers 2017/03, European Investment Bank (EIB).
    5. 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.
    6. Barbetta, Gian Paolo & Canino, Paolo & Cima, Stefano, 2015. "The impact of energy audits on energy efficiency investment of public owners. Evidence from Italy," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 93(P1), pages 1199-1209.
    7. Pavlos Stamatiou & Nikolaos Dritsakis, 2017. "Dynamic Modeling of Causal Relationship Between Energy Consumption, CO2 Emissions, and Economic Growth in Italy," Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics, in: Nicholas Tsounis & Aspasia Vlachvei (ed.), Advances in Applied Economic Research, chapter 0, pages 99-109, Springer.
    8. 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.
    9. Schleich, Joachim & Gruber, Edelgard, 2008. "Beyond case studies: Barriers to energy efficiency in commerce and the services sector," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 449-464, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Schleich, Joachim & Fleiter, Tobias, 2019. "Effectiveness of energy audits in small business organizations," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 59-70.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. Backlund, Sandra & Thollander, Patrik & Palm, Jenny & Ottosson, Mikael, 2012. "Extending the energy efficiency gap," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 392-396.
    6. Backlund, Sandra & Thollander, Patrik, 2015. "Impact after three years of the Swedish energy audit program," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 54-60.
    7. Giraudet, Louis-Gaëtan, 2020. "Energy efficiency as a credence good: A review of informational barriers to energy savings in the building sector," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    8. Palm, Jenny & Thollander, Patrik, 2010. "An interdisciplinary perspective on industrial energy efficiency," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 87(10), pages 3255-3261, October.
    9. Schlomann, Barbara & Schleich, Joachim, 2015. "Adoption of low-cost energy efficiency measures in the tertiary sector—An empirical analysis based on energy survey data," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 1127-1133.
    10. 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.
    11. Kalantzis, Fotios & Revoltella, Debora, 2019. "How energy audits promote SMEs' energy efficiency investment," EIB Working Papers 2019/02, European Investment Bank (EIB).
    12. Jose García-Quevedo & Xavier Massa-Camps, 2019. "Why firms invest (or not) in energy efficiency? A review of the econometric evidence," Working Papers 2019/07, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. Louis-Gaëtan Giraudet, 2018. "Energy efficiency as a credence good: A review of informational barriers to building energy savings," Working Papers 2018.07, FAERE - French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
    16. 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).
    17. 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.
    18. 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.
    19. 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.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:zbw:eibwps:201906. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ceeiblu.html .

    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.