A final agreement was reached last week on two key EU energy efficiency policies: the revision of the energy efficiency legislation for buildings and the revision of the EU A-G energy labelling scheme.

On the energy label, the dispute (which we wrote about here and then here) between the European Parliament and some Member States led by the Swedish Presidency of the EU was resolved with a rather empty compromise. This has left many unhappy although it is arguably a damage limitation exercise from the European Parliament against some seriously aggressive lobbying from white goods manufacturers.
The decision in the end was to continue piling up additional classes on top of the initial well-known A-G scale. Energy classes A+ and A++ had already been introduced for fridges some years ago. Now for all product categories, the label will be opened to A+, A++ and even A+++.
The more reasonable option of "rescaling" existing models - in order to ensure that the A class remains the top reference by becoming increasingly tougher to reach, and that there is a real distinction between different classes – has always been opposed by the white goods industry and has been eventually postponed to the next label revision process, in 2014, despite the fact it would actually have been quite urgent.
This risks making the label ineffective on consumers’ purchase decisions because it means that - in the case of fridges - the most efficient products will be labelled A+++ but the most inefficient products on the market will actually be labelled A, as hardly any product still fall under categories below A, such as B or C (these classes were defined 15 years ago!). This is clearly confusing for consumers.  

The only solution to this problem would have been to adopt an efficiency label that is regularly updated. Unfortunately too many policy makers seem to prefer to listen to the manufacturers' concerns about their fears of not being able to sell their outdated and inefficient products, rather than to consumers, environmental organisations and retailers worried about accurate consumer information and the future of our planet.

A close-ended scale that is regularly updated to reflect technical developments has been opposed by some manufacturers which feared that downgraded products can not be sold anymore.

On top of that, EU decision-makers were not able to agree on a public procurement clause, which would have meant that our governments and cities would have had to buy only energy efficient products. The mandatory mention of the energy rating in product advertising is also not as good as we hoped: it will be displayed only when product advertisements already mention technical data.

You can find a position of a group of environmental and consumer NGOs here (circulated to decision-makers just before their final decision) and a background paper by BUND (in German here. There is also some analysis on the Stop Climate Change website of the Green Party and a WWF press release.

 

On buildings, a political agreement on the revision of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (so-called ‘EPBD’) was reached last Wednesday. It still needs to be confirmed December 7th in the Council of Ministers. The new legislation calls for near zero energy buildings, which sounds good, but the agreement reached seems to be far from what environmental campaign groups have been calling for. It's particularly clear that the huge energy savings potential of Europe’s existing buildings has not been tapped into as much as it would have been needed, and that this will have a dramatic impact on the possibility of reaching Europe's energy conservation targets. Two weeks ahead of the start of the Copenhagen summit, this is not great news.

A widespread consensus emerged at the Coolproducts conference in the European Parliament last week on the need for strengthening European Union (EU) energy saving legislation and to introduce new measures, such as a mandatory energy saving targets. And on making sure the requirements being set for products such as boilers, water heaters and other energy using products covered in the Ecodesign of Energy Using Products Directive (EuP) – the main subject of the Coolproducts campaign – are ambitious.

Over one hundred participants from industry, environmental organisations, consumer groups, EU institutions and specialist media took part in the event, which also saw the launch of the Cool Products, Warm Homes Manifesto by a large group of organisations (and now open to sign-ons from civil society, business and policy makers).

The European Commission was broadly supportive of the Manifesto demands. Emmanuel Cabau from the EU Commission’s Directorate General on Energy (DG TREN) said: “The Commission is in line with the Manifesto”. He did admit that the currently regulatory framework is insufficient and needs to be strengthened and added that all the Manifesto points were being considered as part of the EU’s Energy Efficiency Action Plan revision.

Udo Wasser of European Heating Industry (EHI) association went further.  “The Manifesto could have been written by us,” he said, specifying that this was definitely true for the basic five points of the Manifesto. He also added that if the money that has been invested by European governments during this financial crisis in renewing the car park, had been invested instead in getting people to switch to more efficient boilers boilers across Europe, “we would achieve all our targets”. Even more strikingly, Wasser appeared to back the idea of a ban on inefficient, “non condensing” boilers throughout Europe – a move environmentalists support but which the European Commission is however resisting.

Empty consensus?

Of course, this does not mean that environmentalists, the EU Commission and the industry are all saying the same thing. Environmentalists and Members of the European Parliament are trying to push things further. There is also another big challenge: to convince some very reluctant Member States that pushing for strong EU energy savings targets in products and throughout the economy is a good idea.

The support from a cross-party group of Members of the European Parliament is in any case crucial and is likely to have an strong impact on the likelihood of success of this campaign. Peter Liese, a German conservative MEP, supports a binding target and would like to introduce tax incentives to encourage consumers to save energy. Anni Podimata, Greek socialist MEP, stressed the need to close regulatory gaps and establish a coherent EU legislative framework. Fiona Hall, a British liberal democrat MEP, said that although policy makers do not like to talk in these terms, we need more regulation in this area.

As stressed by John Hontelez, secretary general of the European Environmental Bureau, environmental organisations are actually asking for something new and bold: a binding and absolute 20% primary energy saving target, which would be twice the current non legally binding EU commitment of 2006 to achieve 20% savings compared to business as usual.

Hontelez also added that another wide civil society coalition, the Spring Alliance - made up of social organisations and trade unions, also backs a similar target in its own Manifesto. He said there is a widespread belief across a very wide range of organisations, that an energy efficiency revolution in the economy can be carried out in way that is beneficial for society as a whole.

Eco Design plans need more ambition

The Coolproducts campaign’s own Edouard Toulouse warned that the very large potential emission reductions from Eco Design of Energy Using Products (EuP) Directive were being weakened by national policy makers who were trying to accommodate too many concerns from too many sides, such as those around inefficient electric water heaters – which the French nuclear industry is very keen on – or those wanting to retain inefficient boilers in certain buildings that can’t accommodate super efficient ones without some kind of adjustment.

In response, Andre Brisaer  – the EU Commission official in charge of the unit implementing the  EuP  – said he hoped in the future we would be able speak of “Cool Policy”, when referring to this law, because of its ambition in delivering energy efficiency in products. But he warned about the need to make sure there are no significant impacts on functionality and affordability of products regulated under this process.

Monique Goyens, director general of the European consumers’ organisation BEUC  reassured the audience that consumers are broadly supportive of this policy. “Consumers are willing to become green, even if prices are a bit higher, and even at times of economic crisis. But – they need to be enabled to act sustainably” she said.

“Don’t be afraid of consumers, but help them make the right choices,” she added.

Reinforcing this positive message, Dirk Jepsen of German think tank Okopol said that recent research carried out by his organisation showed it would be possible to go much further than we are doing now in the EuP process, and still be cost-efficient, saving money for consumers (although in some cases there would need to be some support to help low income people make the initial purchase of a new super-efficient product).

The way forward

The MEP Claude Turmes, a Green Party member from Luxembourg, closed the conference stressing we need to move away from the  “empty consensus” on energy efficiency, where everybody seems to agree but nothing of any real substance ever seems to happen. He added energy efficiency policy at EU level is even more crucial now that it has become clear that the “ETS (emissions trading system) will not deliver”.

 

Presentations from the conference can be dowloaded here (note this will dowload a 5MB zip file to your computer)

 If the European Union wants to meet its 2020 climate and energy targets in a sustainable and cost-effective way it has to make a real turn toward saving energy. The EU made a commitment to reduce energy use by 20% in 2020, but is far off track to achieve this target: policies will need to be strengthened.  One quarter of energy in Europe is used for heating and cooling buildings, and around one third of this energy is unnecessarily wasted due to poor performing products.

 

EU minimum energy efficiency requirements for water heaters, boilers and air-conditioners are currently being developed under the 2005 Ecodesign Directive. Will they deliver appropriate savings? Are these measures integrated and will they be complemented by a new EU Energy Efficiency Action Plan and a revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive? Will this help put energy saving at the heart of Europe’s politics this autumn?

Join the Coolproducts partners and MEPs on October 14th to discuss the progress on energy saving in heating and cooling our buildings, and the hurdles and solutions to achieve the common goal.

 

Coolproducts for a cool planet, an environmental NGO campaign, organises the conference and presents there the European Manifesto for Cool Products, Warm Homes. The conference is sponsored by the the European Environmental Citizens’ Organisation for Standardisation (ECOS), supported by the European Climate Foundation, and by the Dutch environmental group Stichting Natuur en Milieu and German organisation BUND.

 

The conference programme is available here.

To register, please download the registration form, and send it to t.greebe@natuurenmilieu.nl no later than 29 September.

 

For more information on the conference content and how to sign up to the Manifesto, contact brussels (at) europeplanetearth.eu

Summer is here and in many regions of Europe temperatures are rising. In response to the warmer weather, businesses, shops, public offices and homeowners are turning on the air conditioning. Meanwhile, the European Union is discussing setting minimum efficiency requirements for these products for all 27 member states. Good news, but given the scale of the problem, the European Commission and Member States need to and could become far, far more ambitious. At the very least, they should look carefully at the more ambitious existing and planned air conditioning standards in other parts of the world. Surprisingly, the EU is seriously lagging behind many other countries, such as Japan.

With the fear of repeated heat waves, impulse purchases of air conditioners in many parts of Europe are increasingly common, especially given that many modern buildings are unfortunately badly designed and don’t cope well with the heat. People are rushing to buy cheap air–conditioning or portable air-coolers, without receiving adequate consumer information about the environmental and monetary costs. And once these produces are in place, they may sometimes be switched on even when the weather conditions are not so extreme. Back in April of this year – as she goaded the goose bumps down by drinking scalding tea –  Huma Qureshi of The Guardian begged her managers at the newspaper’s headquarter offices in London to turn off the air conditioning and 'please just open the windows'.

Whether justified or not, air conditioners across Europe are causing damage to the environment in more ways than one. Air conditioners require great amounts of electricity that are largely produced by fossil fuel burning power plants, and so make a substantial contribution to global warming. According to ‘the Carbon Trust’, carbon dioxide emissions from electricity for offices and shops typically double with air conditioning (more information for businesses on how to manage this can be downloaded here).

In the domestic sector, aircon products are already responsible for 30 million tons of CO2 emissions per year over Europe, with a projected trend of 75 million by 2020. This is nearly a tripling…. If this was to happen, the domestic aircon sector would consume more energy and pollute more than all our fridges and freezers over a year.  Moreover, the cooling machines still add to warming with the leakage of their refrigerant fluids – which are often based on climate-killer HFCs.

Unfortunately when people go to the shop or ask an installer and buy air conditioners, they are currently not always aware of the impact this will have on their electricity bill and on the climate. They are also unlikely to be told in the shop whether the product they are buying is suitable for the type of dwelling it will be used in. Products are supposed to carry an European A–G energy label, but this label is currently in need of updating, plus there is evidence that it is not always clearly displayed.

The main problem in the EU is that air-conditioning products are not regulated by any minimum energy performance requirement at the moment, contrary to what happens in other industrialised countries (US, Japan, Australia). This is why Europe has become the dumping ground of cheap poor performing products not tolerated elsewhere. A real shame!

The standards that are currently being discussed under the EU Ecodesign Directive are clearly insufficient to tackle this problem and they are giving way too much time to manufacturers to produce better products. According to Coolproducts campaigners, the current proposed levels of minimum efficiency would still be in 2014 very far from the level of the best products currently available in Japan. Most of the aircon that we buy in Europe are produced by Japanese manufacturers. So why should we allow them to produce lousier products for our market? The EU would still be lagging behind the US and Japan, which is certainly not what we can expect from the continent claiming to lead the international battle against climate change!

As it stands, the European regulations will apply separate, even weaker requirements for mini air-coolers, which are particularly inefficient ways of cooling rooms. Is this an attempt to please the Italian manufacturer of these movable equipment? This would risk encouraging the uptake of cooling appliances and drive an increase in demand, emissions, and energy imports, but also a major strain on the grid during summer’s hottest days – something which a few years ago was partly responsible for a major blackout.

The Coolproducts Campaign calls for tougher EU measures on all air-conditioners, that would discourage impulse purchase and inefficient use, with a promotion of alternative refrigerant fluids and an end to the energy waste in standby modes. A more detailed position paper is available here).