The European Commission has recently issued a draft Directive promoting the provision of energy services to all domestic and commercial and some industrial consumers of energy.
In its current form the Directive requires the European Member States to:
Ensure that energy suppliers ‘offer and actively promote’ energy services and/or energy audits.Appoint a body or agency which will oversee and monitor the savingsEstablish ‘publicly overseen’ financing possibilities for end use efficiencyEnsure that the public sector sets a good example regarding investments in energy efficiency. To do this MS’s must set a target expressed in terms of an annual improvement of total energy efficiency in the public sector of a cumulative 1.5% per year attributable to the implementation of energy services, energy efficiency programmes and other energy efficiency measures in the public sector.Ensure that regulators of distribution, transmission and retail sales take measures to encourage the introduction of innovative tariffs, cost recovery regulations, revenue caps and similar instruments to promote energy services and other energy efficiency delivery mechanisms.Establish energy efficiency programmes which promote and facilitate the provision of energy services and energy efficiencyEnsure that end users are provided with competitively priced individual metering and informative billing which reflects their actual energy use and, when appropriate, its time of use.Report on the implementation of the above.Its early days for this piece of legislation, however if it is approved by the European Parliament in its current form it will provide a significant boost for energy efficiency in the domestic and commercial sectors.
More about the Directive, including its current draft are avaliable click link
and copies of the draft directive click link
