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The economic assessment of low-carbon energy options is the primary step towards the design of policy portfolios to foster the green energy economy. However, today these assessments often fall short of including important determinants of the overall cost-benefit balance of such options by not including indirect costs and benefits, even though these can be game-changing. This is often due to the lack of adequate methodologies.
The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive account of the key methodological challenges to the assessment of the multiple impacts of energy options, and an initial menu of potential solutions to address these challenges.
The paper first provides evidence for the importance of the multiple impacts of energy actions in the assessment of low-carbon options.
The paper identifies a few key challenges to the evaluation of the co-impacts of low-carbon options and demonstrates that these are more complex for co-impacts than for the direct ones. Such challenges include several layers of additionality, high context dependency, and accounting for distributional effects.
The paper continues by identifying the key challenges to the aggregation of multiple impacts including the risks of overcounting while taking into account the multitude of interactions among the various co-impacts. The paper proposes an analytical framework that can help address these and frame a systematic assessment of the multiple impacts.
Im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums für Ernährung, Landwirtschaft und Verbraucherschutz hat das Wuppertal Institut zusammen mit dem Büro Ö-quadrat einen Tarifvorschlag für Strom hinsichtlich seiner Auswirkungen begutachtet. Zielsetzung dieses Gutachtens war es einerseits herauszuarbeiten, ob der Tarifvorschlag unter der Bedingung, dass die Einführung des Tarifs für den jeweiligen Stromanbieter insgesamt erlösneutral gestaltet wird, nachhaltig zu einer finanziellen Entlastung der einkommensschwachen Haushalte beitragen kann. Andererseits wurde analysiert, ob der Vorschlag auch mit Klimaschutzerfordernissen und einer Gesamtstrategie zum Umbau der Energieversorgung kompatibel ist, die eine Umstellung auf regenerative Energien beinhaltet sowie eine deutliche Steigerung der Endenergieeffizienz vorsieht. Ergebnis: Die verpflichtende Einführung von "Stromspartarifen" ist nicht geeignet, einkommensschwache Haushalte bei Energiepreissteigerungen zu entlasten und gibt keinen Anreiz zur Stromeinsparung. Das Gutachten weist auf eine Fülle von Schwächen bei den vorgeschlagenen Tarifmodellen hin.
The German climate change programme (2000) identified the residential sector as one of the main sectors in which to achieve additional GHG reductions. Our case study compiles results of existing evaluations of the key policies and measures that were planned and introduced and carries out some own estimates of achievements. We show, which emission reductions and which instruments where planned and what was delivered until 2004.
Legal instruments such as the revised building code were introduced later than planned and their effects will - at least partly - fall behind expectations. Other legal instruments such as minimum energy performance standards for domestic appliances etc. were - in spite of the programme - not implemented yet.
On the other hand, substantial financial incentives were introduced. Especially schemes granting low-interest loans for building renovation were introduced. However tax subsidies for low-energy buildings were phased out.
In general we can conclude from our case study that Germany was not able to compensate for the slower or restricted implementation of legal instruments through the introduction of financial incentives. Particularly the efficient use of electricity has been left aside as almost no further policy action was taken since 2001.
Thus energy efficiency in the residential sector will not deliver the GHG reductions planned for in the German climate change programme until 2005. From our findings we draw conclusions and recommendations towards policy makers: Which lessons are to be learnt and what has to be done in order to fully harness EE potentials in residential sector as planned for 2010?