Barriers to and Drivers of Energy Management in Swedish SMEs

The energy efficiency gap is known as the difference between optimal level of energy efficiency and the actual level of achieved energy efficiency. Energy management has proven to further close the energy efficiency gap. Energy management may differ depending on whether it concerns a large, energy-intensive company or small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). SMEs are of high interest since they form a large share of the economy today. For SMEs, a lighter form of energy management, in the form of energy efficiency network participation, has proven to deliver sound energy efficiency impact, while for larger, energy-intensive firms, a certified energy management system may be more suitable. However, various barriers inhibit adoption of energy efficiency measures. While there is an array of research on barriers to and driving forces for energy efficiency in general, research on barriers to, and driving forces for, energy management is rare, one exception being a study of energy-intensive pulp and paper mills. This holds even more so for industrial SMEs. This paper aims to identify the barriers to, and drivers for, energy management in manufacturing SMEs. Results of this explorative study show that the top four barriers to energy management are lack of time/other priorities, non-energy-related working tasks are prioritized higher, slim organization, and lack of internal expert competences, i.e., mainly organizational barriers. The top four drivers for energy management are to reduce production waste, participation in energy efficiency networks, cost reduction from lower energy use, and commitment from top management. Furthermore, results show that energy management among the studied SMEs seems to not be as mature, even though the companies participated in an energy management capacity building program in the form of energy efficiency networks, which, in turn, shows a still largely untapped potential in the societal aim to reduce the energy efficiency and management gaps. The main contribution of this paper is a first novel attempt to explore barriers to, and drivers for, energy management among SMEs.

The Impact of the Government Policy on the Energy Efficient Gap: The Evidence from Ukraine

This paper aims to check the impact of investment and institutional determinants on the energy efficiency gap. The findings of the bibliometric analysis confirmed the growth of research interests in identifying the core determinants of the energy efficiency gap. The central hypothesises are: the increasing quality of the institutions leads to an increase of green investments in the energy sector and the dual relationships between investment and institutional determinants lead to additional synergy effects, which allow boosting the decline of energy efficiency gaps of the national economy. For the analysis, the times series were collected from the World Data Bank, Eurostat, Bloomberg, for Ukraine for the period of 2002–2019. The following methods were used: the unit root test—for checking the stationarity of data—and the Johansen test and VEC-modelling—for the cointegration analysis. The findings prove that to reduce the energy efficiency gaps in Ukraine by 1% next year, it is necessary to increase green energy investments by 1.5% this year, and the political stability and public perception of corruption by 3% and 1%. The increase of the public perception of corruption by 1.47 points and of political stability by 2.38 points leads to maximising the recovery speed of the Ukrainian energy sector. Thus, while developing the policy to decrease the energy efficiency gaps, the Ukrainian government should consider the level of public perception of corruption and political stability.

Exploring the factors influencing energy efficiency in the Greek hotel sector

The current paper aims at enhancing the existing literature of studies discussing the parameters, which formulate the phenomenon of the energy efficiency gap in hotels. Specifically, the obtained outcomes, as resulted by the conduction of a stated preference survey are presented and discussed. The survey was carried out on a representative sample of hotels in Greece in the context of the “Consumer Energy Efficiency Decision making (CONSEED)” project. Emphasis was given on various issues related to the energy efficiency gap, such as the impact of EU labelling scheme, the linkage of the pro-environmental behaviour with the willingness to invest in more energy-efficient technologies and equipment, the lack of information about electricity prices and the imperfect understanding of energy operating costs. The findings of the survey can be used to explain the role of the behaviour in the decision-making procedures for the further promotion of energy efficiency. Theoretical models can be developed with the collected data to examine the energy efficiency gap phenomenon and to quantify the contribution of different factors to its formulation including the calculation of the implicit discount rate. Finally, the design of more effective policies can be supported with the findings of the paper maximizing the private and social benefits, which are associated with the purchase of energy-efficient technologies and equipment in the hotel sector.