Stagnating energy efficiency in the Swedish building sector--Economic and organisational explanations
Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2008

The development towards higher energy efficiency in the Swedish building sector stagnated in the late 1980s and 1990s. In new buildings the average specific energy use for heating is twice as high as in the best performing buildings 20 years ago. By combining econometric studies and interviews with actors in the building sector we analyse the underlying economic and organisational causes for this development. In the stock of buildings, specific energy use for heating (kWh/m 2 /yr) has a high correlation with increasing energy prices and price elasticities have not changed markedly over time. This implies that the stagnation to a large extent can be explained by energy price trends. On the contrary, in new buildings the correlation between energy prices and specific energy use is much weaker. One important cause of low sensitivity to price changes is that information about the life cycle cost (LCC) of different investment alternatives is often not available to the involved actors. The most common investment criterion is instead the requirements of the national building energy standard which has developed into a norm rather than a minimum for energy performance. In this paper we also discuss potential improvements in the learning processes within the sector. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Swedish building sector

Energy price elasticity

Energy efficiency

Författare

Jonas Nässén

Chalmers, Energi och miljö, Fysisk resursteori

Frances Sprei

Chalmers, Energi och miljö, Fysisk resursteori

John Holmberg

Chalmers, Energi och miljö, Fysisk resursteori

Energy Policy

0301-4215 (ISSN)

Vol. 36 10 3814-3822

Ämneskategorier

Annan naturresursteknik

Husbyggnad

DOI

10.1016/j.enpol.2008.07.018

Mer information

Skapat

2017-10-08