After the publication of the REPowerEU Plan and the Save Gas for a Safe Winter Regulation, EU countries and also non-EU European countries have developed and implemented emergency and log-term measures to reduce energy consumption and, in particular, dependency on natural gas as an energy source.
National Energy Agencies have been active in the proposal, implementation, dissemination and monitoring of such plans and initiatives, at different levels.
ADENE, the Portuguese Energy Agency and current President of EnR, has assisted in the drafting of the National Energy Saving Plan and has recently been tasked with the monitoring of its implementation, coordinating a Monitoring Committee which will include a number of other stakeholders and will report to the government with monthly progress reports.
SwissEnergy has coordinated the conception and implementation of the WESPI campaign (Winter Energy Saving Initiative), which involves an advisory board and a support group with over 40 organisations from the public sector, cities and municipalities, business and civil society. The evaluation of the campaign, namely on the behavioural outcomes, will be done externally to identify optimisation potential and adjust further development for next winter.
The Swedish Energy Agency (SEA) has launched two national information campaigns, designed for home owners and for all consumers, but has also been assigned the responsibility to gather data from government agencies, which were mandated to reduce energy consumption through technical measures and behavioural changes. The government agencies will report to SEA, on the energy consumption and measures carried out from November 2022 to March 2023, and SEA will also be providing support through county boards. On top of this, SEA will be handling applications and payments for a subsidy scheme for SMEs that consume large amounts of electricity, mainly to mitigate effects of the price volatilities for electricity, provided the companies show improvements in their production’s energy efficiency. For the past 6 months, SEA has already been performing an extended assignment regarding safe energy supply, with monitoring, assessment and reporting of energy figures, reporting to the government on a weekly basis.
In Hungary, MEKH has help draft proposals for possible energy consumption reduction measures in public organisations and is assisting its Ministry in monitoring of the Industry Rescue Guarantee and Loan Programm, targeted at large and medium sized companies, providing state supported, fixed, low interest rates, for energy efficiency and renewable energy production investments.
CRES, Greece’s Center for Renewable Energy Sources, is the monitoring agency for the ELEKTRA Programme, developed for the energy upgrade of public sector buildings. CRES receives and reviews applications, developed monitoring protocols for energy audits, recommends funding and also provides support for the applicants in the process. CRES is also involved as an expert in the “Support to REPowerEU” project in which it prepared the action plan for Greece, providing technical support for the design and implementation of policy measures concerning the promotion of LPG, biomethane, green hydrogen, photovoltaic systems, of heat pumps, energy saving interventions and RES projects through the simplification of the licensing process.
Motiva, in Finland, has organized the “Down a Degree” Campaign, together with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland, the Ministry of the Environment, the Prime. Minister’s Office and the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra, aiming at getting 95% of Finnish households to save energy and cut down on their consumption by 5% during peak hours in order to permanently lower energy consumption and reduce electricity consumption peaks.
The Energy Saving Trust, in the United Kingdom, is amplifying the national energy saving campaigns, which refer consumers to EST for technical advice, which it has continued to provide under its ongoing programs.