Energy Efficiency Benchmarking

This report is available in German only. Please find the summary in English here.

A detailed examination illustrates the challenges for establishing meaningful energy efficiency benchmarking systems and shows options for connecting them to established energy policy instruments. Especially those designing national and international energy policies benefit from the new findings. Furthermore, companies can rely on the findings of the study when establishing their own systems.

Energy efficiency measures often constitute very profitable investments. However, they are implemented only slowly. One of the major obstacles is the great effort connected with the identification of potential savings in companies. In order to assess the energy efficiency of equipment and production processes, reliable reference values are needed. Comparisons with other companies enable a company to assess its own energy efficiency. In order to provide meaningful results, a benchmarking system must meet essential quality requirements.

With this study, adelphi and the Austrian Energy Agency illustrate the major challenges when building large-scale energy efficiency benchmarking systems and explain how they can be solved in practice. In addition to illustrating the essential requirements of EN 16231, the study also provides an overview and an assessment of existing energy indicators for various industries. Furthermore, the challenges for meaningful benchmarking of processes are demonstrated with the help of models based on examples. The study results in the formulation of recommendations for energy policy explaining how a large-scale energy efficiency benchmarking system for businesses can be established cost-effectively and linked to other energy policy instruments.