The EU Primary Energy Factor for Electricity (EU PEF) value of 2.0, proposed by the European Commission in the 2016 review of the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), reflects several inaccurate methodology choices, disregarding recognised standards and undermining the ultimate objectives of the EED to deliver energy savings across the entire energy value chain.

The joint briefing paper EFIEES signed with AEBIOM, COGEN Europe, EGEC Geothermal, Euroheat & Power And Solar Heat Europe explains in more details why our organisations defend a 2.3 EU PEF value as more accurate. In particular, corrected Commission assumptions leading to a revised EU PEF in EED from 2.0 to 2.3 are:

  • Using statistics will always be more accurate than projections (2.0 corrected upwards by 0.05 or more)
  • Including upstream energy losses (2.0 corrected upwards by 0.10 or more)
  • Using the recognised Carnot method to account for cogeneration in the mix (2.0 corrected upwards by 0.10 or more)
  • Clarifying the geographical scope (2.0 corrected upwards by 0.05)

Being potentially inaccurate, a 2.0 EU PEF would be likely to twist comparisons between electrical solutions and thermal solutions, where the latter would eventually make more sense if all conversion factors were actually accounted in the calculations.

Read the full briefing below:

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