The European Commission’s Clean Energy Package provided the framework for energy policy in the European Union for many years to come. It contains proposals for a whole range of energy-related issues including energy markets, energy infrastructure, renewable energy, climate policy and also energy demand.

In this paper, RAP and BPIE carried out a preliminary review of the proposals and what they mean for energy efficiency.

Each of the key elements of the Winter Package is assessed against the commitment of the European Union to make ‘Efficiency First’ a guiding policy principle in future energy policy making. BPIE and RAP assigned a rating of “Supports Efficiency First” (green), “Needs Improvement” (yellow), and “Inconsistent with Efficiency First” (red) for each section. More specifically, the revised Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), the Directive on common rules for the Internal Energy Market for electricity (IEM), the Regulation on the electricity market and the Regulation on Governance of the Energy Union are analysed.

The conclusion is that, while there are many improvements across the different pieces of legislation, the Winter Package falls short of comprehensively reflecting the ‘Efficiency First’ principle.

A peer-reviewed article with a more detailed analysis originally published in Energy Research and Social Science is also available.