Home energy retrofit has recurred in public policy throughout recent decades. However, the savings in energy usage attributable to home retrofit have remained difficult to accurately predict. Occupants cause prediction inaccuracies by varying different factors, especially heating setpoints temperatures and heating patterns. Acting together, such occupant factors result in distributions - not single values - of heat-energy usage, even among similar homes. Datasets of heat-energy distributions can be found by building performance simulation using modern grey-box models. This study presents a methodology to simulate grey-box models of home heating through ranges of heating setpoints and patterns. An entire process to calibrate, validate and simulate at a large scale is described, and then demonstrated using case studies. Grey-box models, written in Modelica language, can conveniently simulate through large ranges of occupant factors. The case studies exploited this advantage of grey-box models to simulate empirical data on occupant factors. (For instance, empirical data found that home heating setpoints shifted before and after home energy retrofit.) In doing so, the datasets of simulation results enabled the exploration of home heat-energy usage with the normal and Weibull statistical distributions. Additionally, the heat-energy distributions of case-study homes were statistically tested, first for retrofit savings, second for equality to each other and third for equality to an official heat-energy estimate. Results demonstrate that home heat-energy usage, at a large scale, is best expressed as a Weibull distribution not normality. After home energy retrofit, heat-energy usage displays less variation (in general), less skewness, and thus becomes closer to normality. Occupant factors were found to vary home heat-energy usage into distinct distributions, even within similar homes. Therefore, in most case-study homes, heat-energy usage did not equal an official estimate. Finally, shallow retrofit of a modern home in Ireland fails to save heat-energy usage by most occupants.

Deploying green energy is, directly and indirectly, related to energy- and environment-related sustainable development goals (SDGs). This study uses the stochastic impact by regression on the population, affluence, and technology (STIRPAT) model to examine the relationship between CO emissions, energy efficiency, green energy index (GEI), and green finance in the top ten economies that support green finance. The results show that green bonds are a suitable method to promote green energy projects and reduce CO emissions significantly. At the same time, there is no causal linkage between these variables in the short term. Therefore, to achieve sustainable economic growth for environmental issues, governments should implement supportive policies with a long-term approach to boost private participation in the investment of green energy projects. This policy may be applicable during and in the post the COVID-19 era when green projects have more difficulties accessing finance.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the global economy to varying degrees. Coupled with the widening gap caused by the unbalanced distribution of resources, the sustainability and inclusiveness of economic growth have been challenged. To explore the influencing factors of the level of economic inclusive growth among different countries, we used the spatial Durbin model to analyze the relationship between financial inclusion, renewable energy consumption, and inclusive growth based on panel data of 40 countries from 2010 to 2020. The results indicate a spatial autocorrelation in inclusive growth; financial inclusion and renewable energy consumption both contributed positively to inclusive growth, while industrial structure upgrading played a negative moderating role between domestic renewable energy consumption and inclusive growth. The results of this study provide insights into achieving better inclusive growth and maintaining sustainable and balanced economic development. Based on this, policy recommendations such as expanding the coverage of inclusive finance, optimizing the energy structure, and changing the economic development model are put forward.

This study aims to explore the factors influencing households' intentions and actual behavior in relation to saving energy. This study is based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB), extending it by adding descriptive norms and moral responsibility. An online survey was administered to collect data from randomly selected households and data analysis was run using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The research findings reveal the positive and significant effect of TPB factors (attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavior control) and the extended factors (descriptive norms and moral responsibility) on households' intention to save energy, as well as the significant effect of perceived behavior control, moral responsibility, and intention on household's energy-saving behavior. This study also evidences the significant mediating and moderating role of households' intention to save energy and moral responsibility. This study's model explains 70.5% of variations in households' intention to save energy and 63.1% of variations in households' energy-saving behavior. In particular, the extended model explains 11.6% more of the variation in households' intention to save energy compared to the TPB model. This research has several theoretical and practical implications for scholars, environmental protection agencies, and policy-makers.

Policies on reducing energy demand should incorporate the newly formed economic models, digitalization, and consumer awareness trends. Therefore, this study analyzes the interaction of the three trends with SDG7 under energy efficiency vision 2050, measuring the energy efficiency of OECD from 2005 to 2017 to enable this inclusion. In this context, four new trends expected to shape future energy demand are identified through extensive consultation with experts from South Asian countries by developing future power demand for the year of 2050. Consequently, the results show a crucial impact of such trends on a future power demand that exceeds the economic potential of techno. Hence, the best-case scenario, "New Trends Efficient," reduces final energy demand by 78% compared to the South Asian "Baseline" scenario in 2050, whereas the "Worst Case" scenario increases final energy demand by 35%. Therefore, Austria and Korea have the highest energy efficiency score of 0.76 and 0.75, whereas Canada and Chile have the lowest energy efficiency score of 0.41 and 0.42. This paper discusses the ability of digitalization and energy consumer awareness trends in shaping the future energy demand based on SDG 7, emphasizing the importance of energy efficiency vision 2050 in policymaking for effective acquisition.

The primary purpose of this study is to quantitatively evaluate whether low-carbon energy transition has achieved preliminary progress in facilitating China's green evolution of economy following the provincial dataset. Besides, how improved energy efficiency moderates the influence of energy transition on green growth and the mediation effects are also quantitatively explored. The primary findings insist that low carbonization energy transition is positively associated with green growth, a finding detected by a series of sensitivity checks. Besides, the reciprocal actions between adjusting energy structure and raising energy productivity can effectively strengthen their roles in promoting green growth. In addition, boosting clean energy transition plays an indirect role in green growth by enhancing energy productivity while directly facilitating green growth. Following the three outcomes, this study puts forward some policy implications on enhancing governmental supervision, promoting clean energy evolution, and upgrading ecological protection technologies.

The new concept of energy solvency is defined as the ability of a person buying or renting a dwelling to meet the energy costs necessary to keep the dwelling comfortable, without falling into energy poverty. The energy efficiency certificate information is used to calculate the economic expenditure that is theoretically necessary to maintain the property comfortable. This is a more robust value for calculating the energy poverty indicator 2 M than the available data on real expenditure. Dwellings' maximum surface may be determined in order to guarantee the energy solvency, depending on the climate zone, the energy class, the energy sources used, and the household's net income. The results indicate that in 15% of situations, it is not possible to have a dwelling that exceeds the minimum surface area stipulated by law without incurring an energy risk situation. It is also observed that in 86% of the cases, energy solvency is achieved for dwellings with energy classes A, B, C, and D, up to 120 m. It is concluded that, by knowing the energy solvency before renting or buying a home, it is possible to prevent energy poverty by avoiding those operations in which it is known that this will happen.

The challenges currently facing the EU in the energy sector include increasing import dependence, limited diversification, high and volatile energy prices, decarbonization, and slow progress in energy efficiency. EU energy policy has provided a wide range of measures to achieve an integrated energy market and sustainability of the building sector. Various incentives and financial instruments have been promoted and financed by governments to help consumers in energy retrofit processes. These include direct investments and fiscal, financial, and market instruments. Public measures have been widely studied but private initiatives have not. In this study, the energy-efficiency mortgage (EEM) is investigated as a credit scheme to attract young people to a real estate market for sustainable buildings, characterized by high sale prices. A choice experiment (CE) was modelled to investigate the preferences of potential young buyers of a new home. The results of this exploratory survey showed an appreciation of the purchase of new A-rated properties according to the Energy Performance Certificate, compared to those that need to be retrofitted or not retrofitted. Consumers like the option of a home energy efficiency renovation being fully managed by a third party (i.e., following the one-stop shop model). The key appeal of energy efficiency for consumers ranges from its ability to support better energy management, to better property value management. The EEM seems to be a promising tool to stimulate investments in energy efficiency and to promote the accessibility and affordability of housing in the sustainable housing market. The results of this study can help private financial institutions to propose appropriate credit plans, which limit the risk of default by the borrower. They can also help public incentive policymakers to propose complementary instruments to EEM.

Chinese coal enterprises are facing severe challenges due to low-carbon economy requirements and capacity reductions. This paper adopts a dynamic SBM model to compare the mining efficiency of each mining area of a coal company in China. We use total excavation footage, number of working platforms, and machine quantities as input indicators, and coal sales and CO2 emissions as output indicators. It was found that (1) both high efficiency and low efficiency mines maintained their production status each year and did not actively improve over time; (2) energy consumption was the primary indicator affecting comprehensive mining efficiency; and (3) while changes in the market environment did not have any significant impact on coal mining efficiency, coal mine characteristics were found to have some correlations with efficiency.

This study measures the implicit discount rate (IDR) for energy efficiency investment at the household level. Our pioneering attempt to use the contingent valuation method suggests fresh insights into relieving the possible problems induced when the IDR is estimated using multiple price list and open-ended questions. Using the survey data from 2392 respondents in South Korea, we measured the IDR for appliances with high energy efficiency. The measurement ranges from 21.80 to 25.94%, implying the overestimation in existing literature. This study contributes to the literature by determining the role of cognition and experience in energy efficiency investment. Cognition has a statistically significant negative impact on IDR and depends on the appliance type, whereas risk preference has no meaningful impact. Energy efficiency improvement experiences are the critical factor in reducing IDR, that is, promoting energy efficiency investment, especially for recently introduced appliances. Overall, our finding suggests that information that induces high cognition on the cost-benefit analysis and energy efficiency labeling can lower IDR and thus promote energy efficiency. Our study also suggests that targeting energy consumers who have experience in energy-saving campaigns or programs could be a priority because such experiences are crucial to IDR reduction.

Schools are complex physical and social institutions within national education systems. They account for significant energy consumption and like other buildings can demonstrate inefficient patterns of energy use. Poor energy performance of educational facilities is an intricate issue driven by complex causality of interconnected and dynamic factors. Addressing this issue requires a systemic approach, which is heretofore lacking. The aim of this research is to present and describe a systemic framework to facilitate energy reduction in schools across different European contexts. This transdisciplinary approach to sustainable energy use has been piloted in 13 post-primary schools located in six countries in northwest Europe. The research implements a series of planned activities and interventions, which help to unveil a systemic approach to improving energy efficiency in schools. The findings demonstrate how this approach, together with its ensuing methodologies and strategies, can contribute to reducing carbon emissions and improve knowledge and awareness around sustainable energy.

A post-World War 2 building boom in western Germany (the original ) produced a cohort of some 8 million apartments, built in 1946-1979, that are relatively homogeneous in design and materials. On average, these apartments are very energy-inefficient, consuming around 147 kWh of heating energy per square meter of floor area per year (kWh/m/y). Retrofitting them to about 50 kWh/m/y is necessary to meet Germany's climate goals. Considerable skill and infrastructure have developed to attempt to achieve this, but it is expensive. This study investigates whether sales and rental markets disincentivise property owners from retrofitting these apartments to high energy efficiency standards. Data from sales and rental advertisements in 2019-2021 in Germany's largest online housing advertisement portal, Immoscout24, were used to estimate market sales and rental premiums for energy efficiency in these apartments. For property owners who retrofit apartments then sell them, sales premiums for energy efficiency generally fail to compensate for the retrofit costs, unless the renovation is subsidised. Meanwhile, for purchasers, the reduction in energy costs due to higher energy efficiency does not compensate for the higher purchase price. Likewise, for landlords/landladies who retrofit apartments then rent them out, the rental premiums due to higher energy efficiency are nowhere near sufficient to compensate for the retrofit costs. Tenants, however, can often offset the rental premium through energy savings. In all four cases, there is regional variation. Based on a detailed investigation of this market for energy efficiency, this study suggests specific policy interventions to compensate for these market anomalies.

Energy poverty is an emerging issue towards global affairs. Currently, the development of energy-related policies is becoming essential, with regard to new societies, social inclusion and social rights. In this paper, we examine the dynamic patterns of energy poverty among 27 EU member states between 2005 and 2020. We use the log- regression test to investigate the convergence hypothesis, and the P&S data-driven algorithm to detect potential convergence clubs. The empirical results of energy poverty indicators are mixed, and the convergence hypothesis of the states is rejected. Instead, convergence clubs are exhibited, implying that groups of countries converge to different steady states in the long run. In view of the convergence clubs, we suggest that the affordability of heating services is potentially explained by structural conditions of housing, climate conditions and energy costs. Besides, the adverse financial and social conditions for the European households have significantly triggered the arrears on utility bills. Moreover, a significant proportion of households do not have basic sanitation services.

In the USA and the European Union, buildings account for more than 40% of total energy use and a large proportion of buildings are energy inefficient. Countries address these inefficiency challenges with various initiatives and strategies. One of them relies on rating buildings with energy performance certificates, with the goal that awareness on energy consumption would lead to an efficient retrofit. In this article, we analyze the different methods chosen by the USA and France to rate multifamily buildings, i.e., the Energy Star score and the Diagnostic de Performance Energétique. We conduct a case study of a multifamily housing using a Design of Experiments to determine what inputs are the most influent on the output. In the French certificate, the results show that the climate, ventilation system, and building envelope are the most influent inputs on the energy consumption. In the USA certificate, the actual energy consumption and the climate are the most influent factors on the building score. We then discuss the significant differences in the two approaches, and the consequences in terms of accuracy, as well as how the DPE and ES scores are used as a tool in public energy policy to propose energy conservation measures and reduce energy consumption.

Promoting energetic and environmental sustainability in the naval sector requires a necessary understanding of the energy demand of vessels and of the factors affecting it. This article shows the results of a study conducted by the shipping company MedMar aimed at acquiring a detailed analysis of the energetic performances of its fleet. The study involved the analysis of fuel consumption and emissions of the fleet using a specific software and under different scenarios, assuming the navigation speed and the cargo level of the vessels as reference parameters. Simulations also provided a comparison, concerning emissions and externalities, between ships and two different means of transport. The purpose of this study was to identify potential areas of improvement, where ad hoc strategies could be used to further optimise the energetic and environmental performance of MedMar fleet and mitigate its impact on the delicate ecosystem of the gulf of Naples, where the fleet sails.

Assuming that economic policy uncertainty (EPU) can significantly affect economic activities, the paper explored the nature of its effect on energy consumption in G7 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the USA) over the period 1997-2019 using a panel nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag model. The presence of an asymmetric effect of EPU on energy consumption was tested by decomposing EPU into negative and positive changes and placing it in a multivariate setting. The results reveal that the asymmetric effect of EPU on energy consumption is limited to the short run. However, if energy policy fails to manage uncertainty, it could become significant in the long run. Energy consumption is statistically significantly affected by economic institutions and income in both the short and the long run. Higher real income per capita boosts energy consumption in the short run, but like energy technology innovation, it reduces energy consumption in the long run. In contrast, more economic freedom, which was used as a proxy for institutions, increases energy consumption regardless of the time frame. The results point to the energy policy challenges associated with energy consumption and sustainable energy practices.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries are mainly developing countries with severe energy poverty. This study combines the entropy weight and the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method to measure energy poverty at the household, enterprise, and national levels in 82 BRI countries. This study aims to investigate and discuss how to encourage BRI countries to develop effective decision-making mechanisms for developing more targeted supply-side solutions to domestic energy poverty. A geographic information system (GIS) is also used to construct spatial distribution maps to assess energy poverty. The findings show that countries in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and North Africa have the highest levels of energy poverty, while countries in West Asia and Europe have the lowest. East Timor, Tonga, and Equatorial Guinea are of the most extremely lowest. The assessment methodology used in this paper focuses not only on the energy poverty faced by households, but also on the overall energy supply and service situation at the enterprise and national levels. These perspectives are likely to influence policy making and help the governments in addressing domestic energy poverty more effectively from the supply side.

In recent years, energy efficiency has been considered an extremely cost-effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. China is a country with the world's largest coal consumption and heavy reliance on thermal power generation. Therefore, the relationship between the coal consumption constraint policy (CCCP) in China and electrical energy efficiency is a topic worthy of study. Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China during 2005-2016, this paper employs the difference-in-differences (DID) to examine the impact of CCCP on electrical energy efficiency in China. The results indicate that the implementation of the CCCP reduces electrical energy efficiency in the pilot provinces. Based on the mechanism tests, the cost effect outweighs the innovation effect, which is why CCCP decreases electrical energy efficiency. The results of the heterogeneity analysis show that the influence of CCCP is more significant in the provinces with weak law enforcement and small hydropower investment and northern provinces. This study suggests that the Chinese government can promote corporate technological innovation by improving the environmental compensation system and increasing environmental law enforcement to improve electrical energy efficiency. Meanwhile, renewable energy projects should be the focus of future investment.

Air pollution in the aviation industry is becoming increasingly severe worldwide, along with rapid economic development. Therefore, it is significant to pay close attention to airlines worldwide. Usually, the airlines contain passenger transportation and freight transportation on the operating move. This paper proposes a parallel range adjusted measure (PRAM) to comprehensively measure and evaluate the environmental efficiency of 18 airlines from 2014 to 2019. Different from existing models, the model can handle shared inputs, shared desirable outputs, and shared undesirable outputs simultaneously. We build a shared resource decomposition procedure to perform a comparative analysis of the highest subsystem efficiency, and the sensitivity analysis proves the validity of the results. The main findings are as follows: 1. The optimal efficiency can be achieved by most of the 18 airlines when sharing resources; 2. Operating costs in the freight system should be increased to achieve optimal efficiency; 3. Asian airlines show higher efficiency than the airlines in Europe.

This paper investigates the determinants of environmental degradation in Australia from 1990 to 2017, using ecological footprint analysis and the well-established logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) decomposition method. Additionally, decoupling factor analysis was performed to examine the link between environment related variables (CO emissions and ecological footprint) and their determinants such as real income and population. The decomposition analysis considered the impact of five different factors on CO emissions: income effect, population, energy intensity, energy structure, and carbon intensity. For decoupling factor analysis, the link between ecological footprint and its two determinants, real income and population, was examined. Furthermore, the possible decoupling between CO emissions and these determinants was also analyzed, because CO emissions are the main cause of the country's increasing ecological footprint. The present study has a more comprehensive approach because it analyzes the factors affecting environmental degradation in Australia by assigning two proxies (CO emissions and ecological footprint) as dependent variables. The results confirmed that Australia's ecological reserve substantially declined over the past three decades due to deforestation and energy industries. The LMDI results demonstrated that income effect, population, and carbon intensity were the main factors that raised Australia's CO emissions, whereas the energy intensity factor substantially curbed them. The reducing impact of energy structure on CO emissions was minimal; thus, Australia was not able to prevent an upward trend in CO emissions. Lastly, an analysis of Australia's CO emissions according to economic activities was conducted for the period between 1990 and 2017 in order to understand other factors that may have affected environmental sustainability.

Previous energy conservation research highlights the importance of behavior, customer commitments, and energy efficiency programs. Much has been written on the impact of behavior energy efficiency savings documented through home energy report programs. This research expands upon utility efforts to offer behavior utility programs and documents the impact of utility customer commitment research through a formalized utility pilot program. In this pilot program in Utah, the ThermWise (ThermWise is the company related branding for Dominion Energy's energy efficiency programs in Utah.) Energy Pledge, natural gas utility residential customers agreed to a 2-year customer energy pledge pilot program (2019-2021). By enrolling in the pilot, customers set a goal for energy reduction. Customers received monthly text messages in the program with energy-saving tips, a monthly goal status email, cold winter text alerts, and annual emailed program reports. Initially, in 2019, over 2000 customers enrolled in the pilot program. Following the program, an evaluation revealed significant energy savings. Most compelling in those findings discovered that customers who agreed to allow their name to be published on a corporate website had over double the savings of other program participants. The pledge program confirms the impact of customer commitments on their energy use and offers promise for future utility programs encompassing commitments. Further research is warranted on identifying how further incorporate commitments into utility programs.