Lessons learnt from the uptake of energy audits and energy management systems in Germany

Promoting energy audits and energy management systems is a core part of the German and European policy mix for industry. The European Commission established mandatory energy audits for large enterprises in its Energy Eiciency Directive and concurrently encourages the widespread use of energy audits among small and medium sized enterprises (SME). In addition, the German government has promoted the uptake of energy audits and certified energy management systems by two energy tax relief schemes as well as two funding schemes both for large enterprises and for SMEs. As a result, the majority of ISO 50001 certified companies across the world are from Germany. Based on a literature review of 36 papers, this article first analyses barriers to energy audits and energy management system. In a second step, on the basis of five different data sets the current state of diffusion of energy audits and management systems in Germany is presented followed by an empirical analysis of the impacts of energy audits and energy management systems. About one fourth of the Germany industrial companies have currently an energy management system in place. Our findings suggest that energy audits and energy management systems both lead to an increased uptake of energy efficiency measures in industry. Further research is needed on barriers with regard to organizational concepts such as energy audits and energy management systems as well as on the impact of these concepts on the energy efficiency progress in the long-run.