Tracking energy end-use trends and policy impacts during the Covid-19 crisis

Webinar #18 of the Energy Evaluation Academy. Speakers: Jeremy Sung, Florian Mante, Mathilde Daugy and Louis Chambeau, experts of the IEA (International Energy Agency).

View the recordings of the webinar here.

Download the slides here.

This presentation discussed how policy analysts have monitored energy efficiency trends and policy impacts during the Covid-19 crisis. On one hand, novel data sources have made analysing changes during the crisis much easier. On the other, the crisis poses longer-term challenges for analysing policy impacts, particularly due to large changes in time series data.

This was illustrated with results from the IEA’s Energy Efficiency 2020 report, as well as analyses done by IEA’s Energy Data Centre (EDC).

FURTHER READINGS

Recent publications of the European Court of Auditors related to EU energy efficiency policies:

IEA Energy Efficiency 2020 report

IEA Energy Efficiency Indicators 2020 report

Proceedings of the 4th workshop of the G20 Energy End-Use Data and Energy Efficiency Metrics initiative

The Energy Evaluation Academy is jointly organised by Energy Evaluation and Leonardo Energy.

Kathleen Gaffney

The whole Energy Evaluation community has been saddened by the loss of Kathleen who passed away in Paris on 21 January 2021.

Kathleen was a leader in the evaluation field
with a career which included roles at DNV GL
and Navigant in the US, Australia and the UK.

In 2018 Kathleen joined the International
Energy Agency as a Senior Programme
Manager where she was able to share her
experience more broadly and with young
people in particular.

Kathleen has been actively involved with
Energy Evaluation and our sister
organisation IEPEC contributing numerous
conference papers over the last 20 years.
She was co-chair of our conference in Vienna in 2018 and for the online conference that will be held in March 2021.

It was always a pleasure to work with Kathleen. Her great energy, expertise and enthusiasm will continue to be a source of inspiration for all of us. She will be greatly missed by everyone who knew her.

A fund has been established to create a lasting memorial to Kathleen, for more information and an opportunity to contribute visit https://www.lepotcommun.fr/pot/b8mqbt9x.

Energy Evaluation Asia Pacific Leaflet

Energy Evaluation Asia Pacific is pleased to announce that our leaflet is available.

Make sure to share with your friends and colleagues!

The EEE 2021 Newsletter is now out! Download it here:

The Energy Evaluation Asia Pacific Newsletter is now out! Download it here:

We wish you all a safe and well end to 2020. See you in 2021!

The Energy Evaluation Team

Watch our newest video here: https://youtu.be/Dwz1ft3dgy8

Today for the newest instalment in our video series, our Chair of the Trustees Charles Michaelis takes us through what Energy Evaluation is, what kinds of activities we do and how you can get involved.  

Sign up to our mailing list here: http://eepurl.com/hfATXX

Or if you would like to become an Energy Evaluation Ambassador/member of our Planning Committee, email our co-ordinator Hebe: hebe@energy-evaluation.org for more.

We look forward to having you!

Watch it here! https://youtu.be/jpGOe3fUngU

Energy Evaluation Org are pleased to present an exclusive presentation on Integrated Evaluation for the Energy Transition featuring Kevin Cooney.

Kevin owns Buka Energy Strategies and is a key member of Energy Evaluation, sitting on our Board of Trustees.

Today Kevin takes us through the Energy Transition needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and why this Energy Transition needs integrated evaluation. He ends with how Energy Evaluation Org fits into the transition.

Timestamps:
00:24 : Introduction to Kevin Cooney
01:24 : What is different about the energy transition
04:06 : Key trends and opportunities driving the transition
07:19 : Why evaluate programs, policies and investments in an integrated manner?
09:20 : ‘If it quacks like a Duck…’ supply/demand imbalances
11:35 : A truly Smart Grid integrates DERs
13:54 : Three Tiers of DER Analysis
17:52 : Net Present Value often varies across Investment Categories
20:20 : People and Process Impacts
22:41 : How energy Evaluation as an Organization fits into the Energy Transition

Thanks Kevin for a great presentation!

Don’t forget to follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/26607587/ and Twitter: https://twitter.com/EnergyEval for more

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Evaluation of Energy Policies and Programs in the Asia Pacific Region: Current Status, Challenges and Opportunities Ahead

On October 20th 2020, Ed Vine of EEAP gave a Keynote Talk at the International Conference on Utilities and Exhibition (ICUE 2020) on Energy, Environment and Climate Change in Thailand.

View the recording of the presentation here

The Asia Pacific region is a center of interest and activity for energy efficiency and renewable energy technology, programs and policies. Evaluation will play an essential role to developing effective policy and to understanding the impacts of policy and program implementation.

Energy Evaluation Asia-Pacific (EEAP) is a non-profit organization that is taking a leadership role in expanding the practice of, and capacity for, objective evaluation in the energy efficiency and renewable energy fields. While some evaluation is occurring, COVID-19 has had a major impact on evaluation activities. Accordingly, this presentation discussed the following four topics: 

1. Evaluation of energy programs and policies

2. Impact of Covid-19 on evaluation

3. Strengthening the evaluation community in Asia Pacific: EEAP update

4. Eval4Action

FURTHER READINGS

– Vine, Ed, “Strategies and policies for improving energy efficiency programs: Closing the loop between evaluation and implementation.” Energy Policy 36 (2008) 3872–3881

– Vine, Ed, “Building a sustainable organizational energy evaluation system in the Asia Pacific” Global Energy Interconnection 2 (2019) 378-385

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? The EU’s energy efficiency policies scrutinised by the European Court of Auditors

Webinar #17 of the Energy Evaluation Academy. Speaker: Peter Welch, Director “Sustainable use of natural resources” at the European Court of Auditors .

View the recordings of the webinar here.

Download the slides here.

The European Court of Auditors (ECA) promotes accountability and transparency, and acts as the independent guardian of the financial interests of the EU citizens. ECA recently published two reports about EU energy efficiency policies (about appliances and buildings) (see links below).

This webinar presented ECA’s role in the EU policy process, how it relates to evaluation, and the main conclusions from the two recent reports.

The webinar ended with a discussion between Peter Welch, Charles Michaelis (chair of Energy Evaluation) and Sarah Rieseberg (project manager at the Secretariat of the International Climate Initiative (IKI) ) about differences and possible interactions between the work of Courts of Auditors and the work of evaluators.

FURTHER READINGS

Recent publications of the European Court of Auditors related to EU energy efficiency policies:

– “EU action on Ecodesign and Energy Labelling: important contribution to greater energy efficiency reduced by significant delays and non-compliance” (published in January 2020) : https://www.eca.europa.eu/Lists/ECADocuments/SR20_01/SR_Ecodesign_and_energy_labels_EN.pdf

– “Energy efficiency in buildings: greater focus on cost-effectiveness still needed” (published in April 2020): https://www.eca.europa.eu/Lists/ECADocuments/SR20_11/SR_Energy_efficiency_in_buildings_EN.pdf

The Energy Evaluation Academy is jointly organised by Energy Evaluation and Leonardo Energy.

Reflections on the effect of COVID-19 on Energy Evaluation in the Asia Pacific Region

In a recent meeting, our Energy Evaluation Asia Pacific Group took some time to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on them personally, at work, nationally, and more widely on Energy Evaluation in the region. Here is a short summary of the discussion.

COVID-19 and energy

The global pandemic has affected the economic situation worldwide, with the global economy expecting to shrink by at least 6% in 2020.[1] It has also highlighted the importance of a reliable energy supply to enable hospitals to deliver vital care, and it has connected people in new ways despite working remotely in their own homes. Reduced energy consumption, in particular electricity, was a side-effect of economic slowdown and lockdowns.[2] However, an increased portion of this consumption and associated cost has fallen to individual households.

Working online

Face to face meetings are now tough to hold, and there’s a feeling that everything that can be done online, should be done online. Some of our members in China felt this had increased productivity, and had actually helped accelerate some projects. Others at the early stages of projects in Indonesia noted slow progress in the absence of face to face meetings. A colleague in New Zealand reported that they had used the time to organise for the future.

The current situation

Financial recovery and several stimulus programmes are happening in the region, some include energy efficiency measures but few plan to include evaluation.

In India, our members spoke about challenges and opportunities arising from the pandemic, with India being at a cornerstone point where new programmes on supply side and infrastructure are being initiated and are in a strong position to integrate energy efficiency and include evaluations at the design stage itself. Our colleagues in India had heard a lot of discussions by ministers about energy efficiency and renewable energy programmes and how they will contribute to generating jobs, but there is little discussion being had on energy efficiency and evaluation of these programmes in a serious manner.

Australia is planning both financial recovery programmes and energy efficiency programmes. Supporting low income and vulnerable households will be a clear priority, and recent multiple benefits work has provided evidence for governments wanting to have the maximum impact. Everyone is spending more time at home so households are now consuming energy and incurring costs which had been absorbed by workplaces previously.

In the USA, our members reported a lot of money going into financial recovery programmes which include spending on the energy transition. They believe that there is a need for policymakers to ensure energy and carbon emissions goals are being met while addressing the pandemic. Policymakers have been focused on the implementation of programs and policies and less attention has been spent on evaluation. There is an opportunity for evaluators to engage with policymakers to ensure evaluation is part of the mix when developing and implementing energy programs.

What next?

Past evaluations have produced a wealth of evidence which can be put to use in the current economic crisis. This discussion has prompted us to draw together the lessons we have learned from previous moments of crisis, and we will be publishing a blogpost on this soon, including useful resources. Watch this space!

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Visit our website for more resources: https://energy-evaluation.org/

[1] http://www.oecd.org/economic-outlook/june-2020/

[2] https://www.iea.org/reports/covid-19-impact-on-electricity