Enhancing the impact of energy audits and energy management in the EU: A review of Article 8 of the Energy Efficiency Directive

The Energy Efficiency Directive 2012/27/EU (EED) is one of the core pieces of European energy legislation which intends to foster the increase of energy efficiency. Article 8 EED aims to increase the number of energy audits in industry and the commercial sector. For large enterprises, mandatory energy audits are required. For SME Member States are encouraged to establish appropriate instruments to support energy audits.
The EED entered into force in December 2012; Member States were expected to fully transpose the Directive, including Article 8, into national legislation within a period of roughly 18 months, by June 2014. By now, most of the European Member States have transposed Article 8 into national legislation; the level of transposition and concretization of requirements, however, varies across Member States.
Within this paper, policy recommendations for a further development of Article 8 are derived based on the current situation. In a first step, an analysis of the energy use and enterprise structures in the relevant sectors is presented. Complementary, the aspect of competitiveness and multiple benefits is highlighted briefly.
Subsequently the requirements of Article 8 are described, followed by a short analysis of the directive’s transposition in the Member States. Based on the actual implementation, potentials for improvement are identified. From this analysis, the policy recommendations are derived in the summarizing section.