- Funding Programme
- Year
- 2022
Support to the Renovation Wave - Energy Efficiency Pathways and Energy Saving Obligation in Estonia
The European Commission supports Estonia in identifying a suitable energy efficiency pathway and action plan and in developing and implementing policies to achieve Estonia’s energy savings obligation.
Context
Estonia is one of the most carbon and energy intensive economies in the EU (CR2020) and almost half of its energy is consumed in buildings, a higher share than EU average. At the same time, EU energy efficiency targets have become more ambitious. To achieve the 2030 energy efficiency targets, the proposed revision of the Energy Efficiency Directive requires Member States to achieve annual energy savings of 1.5% as of 2024, compared to 0.8% currently. Estonia currently achieves its annual energy savings mainly through taxation measures and to a lesser extent through energy efficiency grants. However, only relying on those measures is unlikely to be sufficient to achieve the increased energy efficiency ambitions. This means that new measures will likely have to be developed, for example a system of voluntary agreements or an energy efficiency obligation scheme under which third parties such as companies will invest, promote, and report on energy efficiency measures, including building renovation. However, such schemes will require more complex energy saving calculations and monitoring compared to the current approach. Estonia is therefore seeking technical support to get its calculation methodology and monitoring and verification system ready to deal with these new types of policies and an expected increased number and diversity of energy saving measures in general.
Support delivered
The project focused on developing clear calculation methodologies for energy saving measures in Estonia that would enable the implementation of a voluntary energy efficiency agreements system or an energy efficiency obligation scheme. This included the development of a catalogue of standard measures with impact indicators and calculation methodologies for energy saving measures in buildings, transport and industry, based on EU best practice and confirmed by a TAIEX workshop. It would also cover recommendations for the updating of this catalogue and the monitoring and verification mechanism. The support also developed a concept for an online IT system for reporting and monitoring of energy saving measures, as well as instructional materials that could be used to improve the understanding of the energy saving calculation methodology by involved parties.
In addition to this core work, the support measures included an assessment of the energy saving potential by sector and high-level recommendations for the most useful policy measures for increasing Estonia's energy savings, including on the possibility of a broader energy efficiency programme bundling individual measures.
Results achieved
The aim of this support was the adoption of an improved methodology and an IT system for calculating, monitoring and verifying energy savings in Estonia that limits administrative burden on the involved parties while the number of implemented measures is increasing. Having such a methodology in place can enable the decision to implement additional energy saving policies involving third parties such as a voluntary agreement system or an energy efficiency obligation scheme, at least one of which will very likely have to be introduced. The support also aimed to improve the way energy saving estimates for measures already taking place are counted. In short, the methodology and system aimed to create the conditions for implementing the higher ambition policies needed to achieve Estonia's energy saving obligations and improve energy efficiency in buildings, but also industry and transport.
The project aims to bring two specific outcomes:
- Energy efficiency targets adopted as part of the Energy Sector Development Plan until 2035, and the National Energy and Climate Plan based on a detailed energy efficiency pathway and action plan.
- New policy measures for achieving Estonia’s energy saving obligation adopted, which cover several sectors and are closely interlinked with other energy efficiency policies.
More about the project
You can read the documents related to the project here: