Enhanced Data for Energy Efficiency for the European Commission

Building on the successful initial project for the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy (DG ENER), a new initiative has been launched to further refine the assessment and communication of energy efficiency progress in Europe.

The previous project effectively delivered short-term estimates of energy efficiency indicators for the building and industry sectors by the final quarter of the current year, significantly reducing the traditional one-year data lag.

To further strengthen the monitoring of the progress across the EU, this project extends its scope to the transport sector, while substantially increasing sectoral granularity in other sectors. Another key objective is to enhance timeliness: the goal is now to provide reliable estimates for the current year as early as mid-year, rather than in the fourth quarter. Deliverables will include comprehensive Methodology Reports along with the projection results and decomposition analysis.

Enerdata will continue to lead this project in collaboration with Fraunhofer and Trinomics. Enerdata will drive the core tasks of analysis and estimations, leveraging its extensive expertise in energy modelling and efficiency, combined with rigorous decomposition methodologies. We aim to help the EU better monitor its progress in efficiency and achieve its energy and climate targets.

January 30^th, 2024

While progress in energy efficiency is a key component of the European Union’s energy and climate objectives, its assessment is hindered by long delays in the availability of the relevant data (exceeding a year). This negatively affects visibility and perceived relevance of energy efficiency, particularly when compared to trends on renewable energy progress, which benefit from reliable short-term data. This issue became more pronounced during the energy crisis of 2022.

In this context, the European Commission’s Directorate General for Energy (DG ENER) aimed to explore the feasibility of generating reliable short-term indicators for energy efficiency and analysing the impact of various measures targeting energy savings. The associated project was awarded to a consortium comprising Enerdata, Fraunhofer ISI, and Trinomics in late 2023.

Enerdata will lead the project and mainly contribute to Task 1, which involves developing a top-down methodology to estimate short-term energy consumption, GHG emissions trends, and energy efficiency on an infra-annual basis. Fraunhofer ISI will address Task 2, using a bottom-up approach to quantify progress in energy efficiency, while Trinomics will be responsible for the overall Quality Assurance of the project.

The project started in January 2024 and is schedule to conclude within one year.