The Second REFEREE Policy Advisory Group meeting was held on March 10th 2022.

After a short introduction from project coordinator Stefano Faberi (ISINNOVA), Jon Stenning (CE – Cambridge Econometrics) and Oriol Biosca (MCRIT) presented PAG members an overview of project’s advancement on the modelling side (CE) and on the output visualization side (MCRIT).

The REFEREE decision tool will help answer the following questions:

  • How can policy instruments alter the take-up of energy efficiency measures?
  • How might these policy instruments, and resultant take-up of efficiency measures, affect different aspects of EU Member States?
  • What are the key impacts that energy efficiency measures can have within a Member State?

Tool development is aligned with the expected planning and completed the background analysis of the multiple benefits of energy efficiency, fed by the input provided by the first PAG held in March 2021. In December 2021, the methodology of multiple benefit calculation was completed. First tool prototype is expected by the end of 2022.

Current negotiations over the proposed recast of the Energy Efficiency Directive in Council and Parliament are offering a good opportunity to streamline the multiple benefits approach at the national and local level: proposed amendments include the requirement for Member States to report on energy efficiency investments and to develop and promote cost-benefit assessment methodology to estimate energy savings multiple benefits. In this context, REFEREE is well positioned to be a potential tool to answer future EU requirements on multiple benefits.

PAG members showed broad support for the tool development advancement and the directions that CE and MCRIT presented, and added useful suggestions that will fuel their thinking in the coming months.

More specifically, some comments were raised by participants asking to:

  • Include further policy options, including policies that are currently considered but have not been implemented yet (for example, property tax based on energy performance of the building)
  • Include difficult to quantify contextual information (such as the impact of an information campaign) as guidance and complementary policy narrative
  • Keep all the proposed options for results visualization (policy support tool).