Energy efficiency and its multiple benefits are key for clean energy transitions, supporting countries in their efforts to meet climate goals and increase access to energy services. Governments are stepping up energy efficiency policy efforts, setting more ambitious targets and measures such as minimum energy performance standards.
However, commonly used indicators such as energy intensity are not specific enough to deeply evaluate the role of energy efficiency. This is because this kind of aggregated indicator is determined by many additional factors unrelated to energy efficiency, including economic structure, type of industrial base, exchange rate, affordability of energy services, country size, climate and behaviour. By using disaggregated data in a decomposition analysis, it is possible to isolate the impact of energy efficiency and of such factors on total energy consumption. In the International Energy Agency (IEA) member countries, despite the fact that energy efficiency improvements have been driving energy consumption down in the recent years, rising activity levels (e.g., increase in population) have led to increased demand and offset some of the positive energy outcomes from energy efficiency.
To support countries in this kind of analysis, in their efforts to track efficiency and to create and evaluate energy efficiency policies; the IEA’s Energy Efficiency Indicators Database provides disaggregated energy consumption, emissions and activity data by sub-sector and/or by end use at a country level. The latest database update launched in parallel with the Energy Efficiency 2020 includes annual data from 2000 to 2018 and expanded geographical coverage. The database is accompanied by the 2020 edition of the Energy Efficiency Indicators Highlights report and free highlights data.
Note: The IEA aggregate refers to twenty-four IEA member countries for which data covering most end-uses area available: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. These countries represented about 92% of the total IEA final energy consumption for 2018.
