Barriers and opportunities: A review of selected successful energy-efficiency programs

Conference · Tue Mar 20 04:00:00 EST 2001

OSTI ID:790406

Worrell, Ernst ^[1]; Price, Lynn

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1. LBNL Library

In industry, barriers may exist at various points in the decision making process, and in the implementation and management of measures to improve energy efficiency. Barriers may take many forms, and are determined by the business environment and include decision-making processes, energy prices, lack of information, a lack of confidence in the information, or high transaction costs for obtaining reliable information, as well as limited capital availability. Other barriers are the ''invisibility'' of energy efficiency measures and the difficulty of quantifying the impacts, and slow diffusion of innovative technology into markets while firms typically under-invest in R and D, despite the high pay-backs. Various programs try to reduce the barriers to improve the uptake of innovative technologies. A wide array of policies has been used and tested in the industrial sector in industrialized countries, with varying success rates. We review some new approaches to industrial energy efficiency improvement in industrialized countries, focusing on voluntary agreements.

• Research Organization: Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA (US)
• Sponsoring Organization: Environmental Protection Agency (US)
• DOE Contract Number: AC03-76SF00098
• OSTI ID: 790406
• Report Number(s): LBNL--47908
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
CAPITAL
DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
ENERGY EFFICIENCY
IMPLEMENTATION
INDUSTRY
INDUSTRY ENERGY POLICY VOLUNTARY AGREEMENT
MANAGEMENT