This week’s briefs

There are several good news briefs this week that you should enjoy.

• Leonardo Energy – IEA DSM Webinar

November 6^th, Catherine Cooremans will be leading a webinar entitled: Customized, Systemic, Strategic – the way to succeed with energy efficiency in industry. It will be held at 15h00 to 16h00 Central European Time. Catherine is Researcher + Co-director of the Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) in Energy Management, University of Geneva – Institute for Environmental Sciences and well known to many EiD readers.

The webinar will stress that energy efficiency is the “1st fuel”, the easiest and cheapest solution to decrease energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. But profitable energy-efficiency investments often remain undecided, which results in a huge energy-efficiency gap and in growing GHG emissions.

The presentation will provide knowledge and practical examples of a business management approach enabling to overcome the barriers to energy efficiency and to more successfully sell energy performance projects to large energy consumers.

This unique triple approach is: 1. Customized: understanding energy users’ business models and value creation processes; 2. Systemic: developing energy management to make energy visible at all organizational levels; 3. Strategic: making energy-efficiency investment strategic to enable them to come out on top in the internal competition for human and financial resources;

You can register here to attend the webinar.

• New OECD report on renewable energy

The OECD has published Renewable Energy Policies and Cross-border Investment. The study assesses the role of feed-in tariffs (FITs) and renewable energy certificates (RECs) in creating incentives for cross-border investments and for investments in particular technological portfolios via M&A. The analysis explores the dataset on M&As in alternative energy sources worldwide over 2005-2011. The results suggest that FITs encourage more diversified M&A than RECs. With respect to foreign investment, the study finds a linear relationship between FITs and cross-border M&As in the wind energy sector, but an inverted U-shaped relationship in the solar energy sector. One possible explanation for the latter may lie in reduced policy credibility due to the public finance implications of ‘generous’ FITs. Another possible explanation for this finding concerns the use of high solar FITs by countries whose natural conditions provide little comparative advantage in solar energy, suggesting that low profitability and limited potential of solar energy in those countries might have deterred the entry of foreign investors.

The report is available on the OECD website.

• IEA workshop on accelerating SME energy efficiency

The IEA is organising a workshop on November 27th on policies and approaches to stimulate energy efficiency in SMEs as part of the process of developing a publication with actionable guidance to policy makers and other stakeholders. The aim of the workshop is to bring together stakeholders and interested parties to discuss how to effectively promote energy efficiency in small and medium sized enterprises and how to strengthen the business case for energy efficiency. Discussions will cover policies, support mechanisms and access to finance. We will explore the roles that different stakeholders can play in creating favourable conditions for energy efficiency implementation and discuss how this can be incentivised. The workshop will be an opportunity to share experiences in policy development and implementation, the development of targeted financial mechanisms, private – public partnerships and to discuss how lessons learned can be used as a foundation to develop new approaches.

The workshop is by invitation only. For those interested in participating, please contact EiD.

• Australia’s National Energy Efficiency Conference 2014

The National Energy Efficiency Conference 2014, run by the Energy Efficiency Council, is Australia’s premier annual event for energy efficiency, demand-management and cogeneration.

Taking place on 11/12 November, the event will bring together up to 300 leading thinkers from business and government to hear about the latest local and global thinking about saving energy.

Key sessions include Gas & Efficiency, the Future of Energy Management, Dealing with Excess Capacity and much more. The program will feature presentations from ministers and international and national experts, a range of workshops and technical sessions, networking opportunities, an exhibition and the third Annual Energy Efficiency Industry Awards and Gala Dinner.

This conference is considered essential attendance for senior figures with an interest in energy efficiency.

Further information and registration is available on the EEC website.