Search

The European Union is giving more and more emphasis to its energy policies, reinforcing a political commitment to very high energy savings, with the aim to achieve a more competitive, secure and sustainable European energy system. Increased energy efficiency is vital to achieve the challenging goals set for the future and energy efficiency constitutes one of the five dimensions of the European Commission's Energy Union Package, designed to enhance energy security, sustainability and competitiveness. Within this policy context, this report focused on the 2010/31/EU Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings and the 2012/27/EU Directive on Energy Efficiency, describing an initial set of pilot activities undertaken to enable and test the use of geospatial technologies in Digital Government processes and services related to energy efficiency EU policies, aiming to show, through a set of use cases, that accurate and interoperable location-based information can lower the barriers faced by government, companies and citizens involved in the energy efficiency policies’ lifecycle. The approach adopted is based on the INSPIRE Directive 2007/2/EC, establishing an infrastructure for spatial information in Europe to support Community environmental policies, and policies or activities which may have an impact on the environment, such as energy policies. The enabling role played by INSPIRE consists in the provision of common data models and common data access rules adopted by all EU MS and a roadmap to provide interoperable datasets of high relevance with energy efficiency. The report has identified a series of next steps to be undertaken to achieve the expected benefits deriving from the use of interoperable location-based information within the analysed energy policy instruments and to solve the issues encountered., JRC.B.6-Digital Economy

Based on the priority currently given by the European Union to the energy efficiency topic through its Energy Union Package, this feasibility study has focused on the role of location data in support of energy efficiency policies, taking into account the requirements of INSPIRE, EPBD and EED Directives, as well as the CoM initiative. The EU Member States are already due to implement such Directives according to different roadmaps, but there are benefits to be gained from a coherent and consistent approach. Moreover, data is not always available in consistent form and with good quality. The monitoring and reporting requirements set by the CoM need real data and models, that can be used and that should work consistently across different administrative levels. The analysis reported in this document support these statement, showing that there is lack of data quality and reliability. These aspects might hinder the effective application of the energy efficiency policies at the municipal, district and national level. Geospatial technologies in general and accurate location data in particular can support this field, because they can significantly support efficient processes related to data collection, elaboration and communication to be executed in all the phases of energy efficiency policies life cycle; and effective decision-making. INSPIRE has a role to play as it can provide common data models and common data access rules adopted by all EU MS and a roadmap to provide interoperable datasets of high relevance with energy efficiency. The study has identified areas of development and analysis that can be useful to fill the recognised “data gap”, and proposed an initial pilot activity as a start-up project to investigate concretely these ideas with a limited number of pilot cities, JRC.H.6-Digital Earth and Reference Data

This guidebook is adapted to the South Mediterranean context from the Joint Research Centre’s (JRC) guidebook "How to develop a Sustainable Energy Action Plan", developed in 2010 to support the implementation of the Covenant of Mayors (CoM) initiative in European cities. Through the CES-MED project, the European Union has opened the CoM initiative to local authorities of ten southern Mediterranean countries (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria and Tunisia). The purpose of this guidebook is to make energy efficiency and climate change mitigation measures relevant, achievable and compelling to local authorities in the southern Mediterranean context. Ultimately, it aims to enhance the competitiveness of municipalities and ensure their economic development while reducing dependence on energy imports and fossil fuels through the implementation of energy efficiency, renewable energy and other well-planned climate change mitigation actions at the local level. The guidebook provides detailed, step-by-step guidance to local authorities in southern Mediterranean countries to develop an effective Sustainable Energy Action Plan (SEAP). The process has four phases: initiation, planning, implementation, and monitoring and reporting. The choice and sequence of actions can vary according to the policies and measures already in place. This flexibility allows local authorities to develop a SEAP coherent with and effective for their local circumstances and objectives., JRC.F.7-Renewables and Energy Efficiency

The main goal of this study is to collect a wide inventory of Smart Grid projects in Europe and use project data to support analysis on trends and developments. The report looks into several aspects of the Smart Grids landscape to describe the state of the art of their implementation, the emerging hallmarks of the new electricity system and the foreseeable developments. A key focus of the Report is to describe how Smart Grid projects address and respond to the EU energy policy challenges and to point out the main benefits and beneficiaries. Particular attention is devoted to identifying the most important obstacles to investments and the possible solutions that could help to overcome them. e-book attached. S.N., JRC.F.3-Energy security