Europe A-grades itself into failure on energy efficiency measures

Brussels, Belgium – Europe has failed to make significant ground with two key energy efficiency measures, taking positions that advantage industry after months of negotiations.

On buildings and appliances, the EU missed the opportunity to maintain its one time position leading on energy efficiency as a key way to reduce emissions, costs and kick start the new green economy often referred to in their rhetoric.

After initially rejecting a confusing appliance energy rating scheme that involved grades of A+++, A++, A+ and A, Europe’s Trialogue parties of the European Council, European Commission and European Parliament accepted the scheme which would see consumers confused and A grades going to relatively energy inefficient products.

“No matter how we look at it, there is nothing positive about introducing three additional A-grades,” saids Mariangiola Fabbri, Energy Policy Officer at WWF.

“Our goal should be to make energy efficiency an easy choice for consumers. Instead, decision makers are buying time until the next revision of the Directive in 2014.“

“Already now, the text introduces a possibility of reclassifying the labels during the next revision – which clearly shows a lack of confidence in the new system. We can only hope that despite all the back and forth on labelling, consumers will learn to identify the most efficient products and even more so, buy them.“

Another setback came with rejection of European Parliament efforts to introduce an obligation for member states to specify only the most efficient products in public procurement procedures.

Missing the grade on building energy efficiency as well

New building energy efficiency measures also suffered from unwarranted delays in implementation and a lack of measures to require energy efficient renovation of existing housing stock.

Agreed text on the new Energy Efficiency in Buildings Directive (EPBD) reflects neither the ambitions nor the urgency required to put a stop to the waste of energy in European buildings, responsible for 40 per cent of final EU energy use and 36 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions.

The new EPBD was presented as a breakthrough, largely on the basis of new nearly zero energy consumption requirements for new buildings irrespective of size, a requirement for significant energy to come from renewable sources, and initial measures coming into effect in 2013.

However, the deadline for nearly zero energy consumption is not until 2021, and new construction accounts for just a very small percentage of all buildings (1% per year).

Still missing are clear targets requiring Member States to renovate their existing building stock in a specific time frame. Also, no additional financing was foreseen either from EU or from national budgets to speed up renovations.

“Unfortunately there is no provision at all which ensures that laggard Member States will improve their building regulations. As a consequence, citizens will continue to spend a lot of money to warm the climate instead of their homes”, said Arianna Vitali, Energy Policy Officer at WWF.