Page 16 - European Energy Innovation - summer 2019 publication
P. 16
16 Summer 2019 European Energy Innovation
INNOVATION & ENERGY EFFICIENCY
The biggest innovation in
energy is efficiency
By Monica Frassoni (pictured), President, European Alliance to Save Energy
Our focus on measuring
GDP growth has trapped
us in a linear view of
society. Long term
quality of life needs to become the
most important measure of global
success. With greenhouse-gas
emissions increasingly a constraint on
current and future improvements in
prosperity, we need to become much
smarter and more resource efficient.
An energy efficient Europe will
foster competitiveness and growth
through innovation but also large
scale implementation of existing
technologies in a range of sectors,
each of these contributing to the
prosperity, health and wellbeing of
Europe’s citizens.
Energy efficiency improvements
across all sectors are key to arriving
at a climate neutral world by 2050.
The last decade saw an
unprecedented increase in awareness
of the multiple benefits of energy
efficiency. As a result of this, in
November 2016 the European
Commission proposed making energy
efficiency central to a package of
legislation known as Clean Energy
for All Europeans. Between 2018 and
2019, several pieces of legislation
aiming at improving energy efficiency
were adopted: the Energy Efficiency
Directive (EED), the Governance of the
Energy Union Regulation, the Energy
Performance of Buildings Directive
(EPBD) and the Internal Market for
Electricity Directive and Regulation.
Over the next few years national
governments, the Commission, local
authorities, businesses, civil society
and other stakeholders will have to
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