Barriers to improvements in energy efficiency. LBL.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Reddy, Amulya K.N.

1991

2145
CIENA

Patterns of energy consumption are shaped by the behaviour of a large number of factors, each of whom has to make many decisions relating to energy-using activities. Thus, the implementation of energy-efficiency improvements involves actors operating at various levels. In this paper, the following actors are considered: energy consumers(individuals, households, firms, farms, factories, etc.), manufacturers and providers of end-use equipment, producers and distribuidors of energy carriers, actual and potential cogenerators, local/national financial institutions, goverments/countries and funding/aid agencies of international and multilateral organizations and of industrialized countries. To promote energy-efficiency improvements, actions may be required at one or more levels--from the lowest level of the costumer(residential, commercial, industrial, etc.) through the highest level of the global agencies. But barriers to the implementation of energy-efficiency improvements exist or can arise at all these levels. At the level of energy consumers, the barriers to energy-efficiency improvements are due to the ignorant, the poor and/or first-cost-sensitive, the indifferent, the helpless, the uncertain and the inheritors of inefficiency. In the case of manufacturers and providers of end-use equipment, barriers arise due to the efficiency-blind and the operating-costblind respectively. The barriers at the level of producers and distributors of energy carriers are due to the supply-obsessed, the centralization-biased and the supply-monopolists. Actual and potential cogenerators can be cogeneration-blind. Local/national financial institutions can be supply-biased, unfair and hold anti-innovation attitudes. In the case of governments or countries, barriers arised from governments/countries that are uninterested, short of skills, without adequate training facilities, without access to hardware and software and short of capital (particularly in the case of infraestructure-poor countries). Other governmental barriers involve the sales-promoting regulator, the powerless energy-efficiency agency, the cost-blind price-fixer, the fragmented decision maker, the large-is-impressive syndrome and the large-is-lucrative approach. Finally, at the level of international, multilateral and industrialized country funding/aid agencies, there are barriers due to the exporters of inefficient technology, the supply-biased, the anti-innovation attitude, the large-is-convenient funder, the project-mode sponsors and the self-reliance underminers (alias the dependence-perpetuators). Taking up each one of these barriers in turn, the paper discusses specific measures that can contribute to overcoming the barriers. However, a one-barrier-one-measure approach must be avoided. Single barriers may in fact involve several sub-barriers. Also, combinations of measures are much more effective in overcoming barriers. In particular, combinations of measures that simultaneosly overcome several barriers are most succesful. A frecuently implemented package consists of a combination of fiscal incentives, price controls, technical research and development (R D), publicity and educational measures and legislation encompassing the public and private sectors, individuals and organizations. From this point of view, energy service companies are also combination packages, because they are single-window agencies for implementing all components of energy-efficiency programmes--providing information, assessing requirements, financing, organizing contractors, etc. Combinations of measures are also necessary at the strategic level. Least-cost planning is an example of such a combination. Comprehensive strategies are also required to improve the fuel efficiency of vehicles using petroleum products. Since many of the barriers result in an imperfect market for efficiency improvements, price mechanisms alone will not work and market forces on their own will not achieve the potential for energy efficiency. These has to be emphasis on policy-assisted, market-oriented mechanisms for promoting energy efficiency. This paper emphasized the importance of having a grander vision than energy-efficiency improvements. Promoting innovation rather than energy efficiency per se is likely to be an specially effective way of improving efficiency (as long as energy is priced correctly). Minimizing total production costs (and thus encouring new technology) will often lead to lower energy use than minimizing life-cycle costs (which could prolong the life of obsolete technology). Such a stress on innovation necessarily means an emphasis on research and develpment. Thus, the paper discusses the typology of barriers, explores their origing and suggests measures that, by themselves or in combination with other measures, will overcome these barriers. Since most of the barriers dealt with can be found in the barriers literature, any originality in the paper lies in its systematic organization, synoptic view and holistic treatment of this issue. Of course, the scheme can be expanded and improved. In that sense, this paper is intented to initiate a comprehensive treatment of barriers, their origins and the measures that contribute to overcoming them. Hopefully, such a treatment will facilitate the implementation of energy-efficiency improvements involving a wide diversity of ever-changing energy and uses and consumer preferences..

PAISES EN DESARROLLO; USO RACIONAL DE LA ENERGIA; PROBLEMAS; MEDIDAS DE CONSERVACION; CONSUMO DE ENERGIA;