Reviewing successful and/or innovative policies to drive an energy efficiency strategy: case study for France

Information available worldwide about energy efficiency policies and programmes has become very large. A major problem for practitioners is how to use this huge material for improving their own strategies and practices. On the one hand, there would be thousands of pages to explore, which is highly time consuming and therefore unachievable for implementers. On the other hand, there are platforms where practitioners may share their experience (e.g. ECEEE, Concerted Actions). However energy efficiency activities are now so diverse that it is impossible to cover all sources of experience feedback. And due to practical constraints, the exchanges are often reduced to bilateral contacts on a few cases. This paper presents the results and conclusions from a study for a national agency whose objectives were to build a catalogue of innovative energy efficiency measures (including experience feedbacks from policy implementers), highlighting their potential and the degree to which they could be transferred into another national context. A grading system, taking into account several factors (e.g. public cost, leverage effect) was used to compare and rank 47 measures, so that the practitioners can easily detect their strengths and weaknesses. In parallel, qualitative analyses remain critical to take account of the specificities. The high-grade measures were mostly detected in the industry and transport, mainly because the ones in the residential sector require more public investments. New requirements for rented dwellings, block-by-block refurbishments, innovative third-party financing and networks for benchmarking and experience sharing are among the most promising measures. The results of the study were used by the practitioners to improve their knowledge on abroad innovative policies implementable in France and that could be proposed in the future. As the government is often requesting proposals of new measures under very short time limit, this resource is then very useful.