Energy efficiency is high on the political agenda as governments seek to reduce wasteful energy consumption, strengthen energy security and cut greenhouse gas emissions. However, the lack of data for developing proper indicators to measure energy efficiency often prevents countries from transforming declarations into actions. This manual identifies the main sectoral indicators and the data needed to develop these indicators; and to make surveying, metering and modeling practices existing all around the world available to all. It has been developed with a companion document, Energy Efficiency Indicators: Essentials for Policy Making, as a starting point towards enabling policymakers to understand where greater efficiency is needed, to implement appropriate policies and to measure their impact.

Energy Conservation Indicators is a methodology to break down energy consumption data into their component parts in the same way as those which are due to annual weather fluctuations, business cycle, structural changes in the economy and higher energy efficiency. This methodology is applied for the first time to all twelve Member Countries of the European Communities for the period 1979 to 1985. It represents a tool for a long-term monitoring of the efforts towards the goal set by the Council of Ministers of the European Community to achieve a 20% improvement in intensity of final energy demand between 1985 and 1995. In addition, it is used by the Commission of the European Communities for considerations regarding energy conservation policies for the Community. The results of the analysis performed showed that the goal set by the Council cannot be reached if the current trends prevail in the years to come. The reasons are the declining impact of structural changes towards less energy-intensive production and the increasing level of energy-consuming comfort in the residential and private transportation sectors.

Energy is one of the most important factors of production. Its efficient use is crucial for ensuring production and environmental quality. Unlike normal goods with supply management, energy is demand managed. Efficient energy use—or energy efficiency—aims to reduce the amount of energy required to provide products and services. Energy use efficiency can be achieved in situations such as housing, offices, industrial production, transport and agriculture as well as in public lighting and services. The use of energy can be reduced by using technology that is energy saving. This Special Issue is a collection of research on energy use efficiency.

Examines recent trends in end-use energy consumption in Canada, identifying and analysing the factors that have caused changes in the demand for energy. Also develops indicators of energy efficiency improvements, using a factorisation method to determine the contribution of energy efficiency to changes in end-use (secondary) energy use. Such a method allows an assessment of the underlying changes in energy intensity for each end-use sector and permits distinguishing the effect of changes in energy intensity on energy use from changes in economic growth and changes in the mix of energy-using products or activities. Economy-wide trends are described first, followed by sections on energy efficiency trends in the residential, commercial, industrial, and transportation sector. The final section analyses factors influencing growth in energy use in each sector 1990-94. Appendices include a description of the methodology and data sources for the factorisation analysis, as well as a glossary.