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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Evaluations of the Danish agreement system

Conference ·
OSTI ID:20001862
Denmark has an ambitious energy policy with the objective of reducing the CO{sub 2} emission by 20% in year 2005 compared with the 1988 levels. Taxes are widely used as policy instruments and several supply-side actions like introduction of natural gas, expansion of the district heating network, and strong regulation on the use of electric heating in new buildings. In Denmark, energy regulation towards industry has traditionally been based on voluntary demand-side measures, e.g. free electricity audits funded by the utilities (since 1988), information or subsidies for energy efficient investments (1977--83). Since 1979, taxes on energy have been used for households, and in 1993 taxes were introduced for trade and industry. It was later found that the CO{sub 2} objective would not be met unless new initiatives were applied, and that taxes on trade and industry would be the most efficient way to reach further CO{sub 2} reductions. The taxes therefore were increased in 1996 especially on trade and industry and will increase in yearly steps until year 2002. The objective was that trade and industry would contribute with 4% of the CO{sub 2} reductions. Taxes are now a very important element in the CO{sub 2} regulation in trade and industry. In the interest of maintaining competitiveness it was decided that all the revenues from the increased energy taxes should be recycled. Furthermore a number of energy-intensive enterprises will receive a reimbursement, provided they enter into a binding agreement with the Danish Energy Agency. In this paper the Danish energy task systems will be described with the focus on the parts related to the agreements. The authors will present and discuss the main findings of three evaluation studies concerning the agreements.
Research Organization:
Elkraft (DK)
OSTI ID:
20001862
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English