Better understanding of energy sufficiency

France has made energy sufficiency – the deliberate reduction of energy consumption – one of the three pillars of its decarbonisation strategy, alongside nuclear and renewables. However, Brussels and other European capitals have yet to fully embrace the approach. Paul Messad discusses the French approach in an article on the EURACTIV website.

Energy sufficiency, a French political concept still misunderstood in Europe

The French government presented its energy sobriety plan in October last year, at a time when the country’s nuclear fleet was partly out of service and Europe was facing winter gas shortages following the Russian military aggression in Ukraine.

‘Energy sufficiency’ seeks to influence behavioural change, in a planned and deliberate way, in order to reduce energy consumption. For Paris, the goal was to reduce energy use by 10% by the end of 2024.

The government slated 15 key measures “on the whole range of energy savings” – from reducing heating to a maximum of 19°C in offices, to reducing shower time and encouraging people to carpool.

This was a “first step towards the objective of reducing final energy consumption by 40%” between 2022 and 2050, said the Energy Transition Minister, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, who spoke at a hearing in the French Senate on 24 May.

It was also an important step towards achieving the European objective of reducing energy consumption by 11.7% by 2030, as set out in the Energy Efficiency Directive, which was being revised at the time.

According to the directive, energy savings are “the amount of saved energy determined by measuring and/or estimating consumption before and after implementation of one or more energy efficiency improvement measures”.

Does this mean that energy sufficiency is a part of energy efficiency improvement measures? According to the IPCC, sufficiency is defined as “a set of measures and daily practices that avoid demand for energy, materials, land and water while delivering human well-being for all within planetary boundaries”.

Conversely, energy efficiency involves reducing energy consumption for a given good or service.

While the two concepts share the same objective of reducing energy consumption, there is a fundamental difference: where efficiency means replacing an internal combustion car with an electric car, sufficiency means taking a bicycle, explains the Jacques Delors Institute in a May 2022 briefing note.

In that sense, sufficiency represents a more radical departure from existing consumption patterns that prompts a structural change in behaviour rather than being focused on the short term.

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