Home Countries Ireland National Implementation Process

Introduction

Background

The EC Directive on Energy End Use Efficiency and Energy Services (ESD) was introduced in 2006, to enhance the cost effective improvement of energy end use efficiency in Member States. The Directive can be accessed here.

The Directive applies to providers of energy efficiency measures, energy distributors, distribution system operators and retail energy sales companies; and all energy users except those involved with the EU carbon emissions trading scheme.

The main requirements of the Directive are:

• national indicative energy savings target of 9% by 2016
• public sector to fulfil an exemplary role in meeting the target
• Member States required to place obligations on energy suppliers and distributors to promote energy efficiency
• requirements on metering and billing to allow consumers to make better informed decisions about their energy use

NEEAP

Ireland’s National Energy Efficiency Action Plan 2009-2020 can be accessed here.

The Plan was published in May 2009 and builds upon an Energy Efficiency Action Plan that was submitted to the European Commission in September 2007. This was required as part of Ireland’s obligations under the ESD, which requires Member States to deliver energy savings of 9% by 2016. In accordance with Article 4 of the Directive, the 2009 Plan sets out Government plans and actions to achieve a target of 20% energy efficiency savings across the economy by 2020. The Plan also recognises that the Government must take a lead role in energy efficiency; hence a higher target of 33% has been set for the public sector.

The Action Plan will be closely monitored on an ongoing basis, by an Interdepartmental Implementation Group. This group will report to Government at regular intervals on progress being made towards the 20% target. The Action Plan contains 90 actions, measures and programmes, and as new measures and savings are identified, the Plan will be revised accordingly. As required by the ESD, future Action Plans will be submitted in 2011 and 2014. These later, more advanced NEEAPs must include a thorough analysis and evaluation of the preceding NEEAP. They will demonstrate progress towards achieving the national targets, and must also set out plans for adjustment or addition to the actions, as appropriate to this progress.

For further information on the national implementation process in Ireland please contact:

Heather Haydock
AEA Energy & Environment
Heather.Haydock@aeat.co.uk

Documents

National Workshop

UK and Ireland EMEEES National Workshop

In March 2008, the ‘UK and Ireland EMEEES National Workshop’ was held in London.
The objective of the meeting was to present and discuss the Energy Services Directive (ESD), the Evaluation and Monitoring in Energy End-use Efficiency and Energy Services project (EMEEES) and its draft methodologies. Participants included Defra, BERR, Sustainable Energy Ireland and The University of Cork.

Case study examples of bottom-up methods for determining energy savings were provided from the EMEEES project. The three level bottom-up approach was considered appropriate by the participants, due to the flexibility for countries with different levels of data and evaluation experience. 

A number of key points arose during this meeting.

• In Ireland data availability is a big challenge, for example Ireland is not included in the GKN appliance database. It may be possible to obtain information on new measures but it is not known what the situation was before the measure was implemented.
• The issue of data confidentiality was raised at the workshop. It was highlighted that it would be useful for both the UK and Ireland to know how the data will be used, in order to strengthen the case for special access in other member states. Ireland has routes to access confidential data through the ‘officer of statistics protocol’.
• It was preferred by the participants that all energy savings from measures that are still saving energy in 2016 will be counted, no matter when these measures were installed.  This prevents the possibility of member states being penalised for taking early action.
• The question rose as to how the savings can avoid being double counted, when savings can be attributed to both national and EU level policies. The participants agreed that all national action should be counted, whether it involved implementation of an EU Directive or not.