Environmental Engineering Reference
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facing signi
cant problems that are related to the preceding matters but, as indicated
above, they are beyond the objectives of this chapter.
The use of trading to allocate ef
ciency targets has been deployed in other
contexts of energy regulation as well. One of the latest and most innovative policies
to promote energy ef
ciency is the introduction of obligations or white certi
cates
systems. This legislative measure requires energy suppliers to achieve a
xed
amount of energy saving by applying certain measures of energy ef
ciency on their
nal customers, during a limited period of time. In some cases, the level of energy
savings is certi
cates,
which can be traded so an overachievement of a target can be sold to someone who
is under achieving his target. Hence, similarly to permits, obligation systems rep-
resent a
ed by public authorities through the so-called white certi
exible approach that encourages cost effectiveness.
This mechanism has been applied recently in Italy, UK, France, Denmark and
the Flemish region of Belgium. The design of the policy varies for each country
depending on the obliged party, the number of involved sectors, and on the mea-
surement of energy savings. Bertoldi and Rezessy [ 8 ] and Bertoldi et al. [ 9 ] provide
a detailed description of such systems. While there are many positive aspects to
such an approach, there has been concern with the possible interactions with the
EU-ETS in Europe, and with the existence of rebound effects (see below).
3.3 Information Instruments
Information policies have the goal of mitigating the negative effects of incomplete
information, one of the most important market failures in this area. During the last
few years governments and energy agencies have introduced a number of different
mechanisms to provide customers with direct, cheap and reliable information about
the energy performance of their energy services and products. Some examples of
these were presented in the previous section (see Sect. 2 ).
Such information can be provided in different formats, depending on the sector
of the economy. One of these is energy performance certi
cates or labels, which
were
rst used in other areas such as the food industry. More recently, they were
used in the energy ef
ciency market for products like vehicles, buildings, or
appliances. These labels or certi
cates have the objective to provide consumers
with information regarding the energy performance of such products. Most
importantly, they generally classify that level of energy performance in relation to
the rest of products in the market so that consumers can then compare them. In the
US the EnergyStart is a voluntary program that distinguishes high-energy perfor-
mance products such as buildings, appliances, electric equipment, etc. In Europe,
the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (Directive 2010/31/EU) [ 18 ]
requires the owner to show an energy performance certi
cate when any building is
rented or sold. Directives 1999/94/CE [ 19 ] and Directive 92/75/CEE [ 20 ] revised in
2010 (Directive 2010/30/EU) [ 21 ] replicate this with vehicles and appliances,
respectively.
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