Technical skills, disinterest and non-functional regulation: Barriers to building energy efficiency in Finland viewed by energy service companies

Abstract

Energy inefficiency in the building stock is a substantial contributor to climate change. Integrated energy service companies (IESCs) have a potentially important role in improving energy efficiency. This paper presents a qualitative analysis of the energy efficiency barriers in the Finnish building sector based on data from interviews with twelve IESCs. Taking a novel supply side perspective, we place IESCs at the centre of the emerging energy services business ecosystem to identify the barriers and hindering factors (real world illustrations of barriers). From this perspective, we also examine causeeffect relationships between the hindering factors and the actors. Hindering factors, reported by IESCs, were categorised under a revised barrier taxonomy consisting of economic market failures and economic market, behavioural, organisational and institutional barriers. The most salient hindering factors-lack of technical skills, disinterest in energy efficiency improvements and non-functional regulation-were analysed with respect to ecosystem actors causing and affected by these factors. Public actors have a key role in overcoming these barriers, for instance, by creating new possibilities for entrants to take part in decision-making, increasing the functionality and practicality of policies and by providing up-to date energy efficiency information.

Development of a toolkit for assessing and overcoming barriers to the implementation of energy saving projects

“…Regarding the evaluation of barriers to energy efficiency, a significant number of scientists conduct only their qualitative analysis, as it was done in article [15] using the example of the Finnish construction sector. The results of the survey of energy managers were also used for the purpose of such evaluation [16].…”

“…At the same time, it is necessary to take into consideration the existence of different ways of overcoming barriers to the implementation of energy-saving projects. In particular, paper [15] points out the need to provide up-to-date information on energy efficiency. Research [18], using the example of the implementation of Swedish municipal energy efficiency programs of enterprises, emphasized the importance not only of comprehensive information support of these enterprises but also of their ability to process information.…”

Business models for residential retrofit in the UK: a critical assessment of five key archetypes

“…Consequently, various scholars have identified how such systemic innovations may have specific characteristics that are more suitable to certain novel BMs (Hall and Roelich 2016;Richter 2012;Steinberger et al 2009). In addition, new BMs for energy services may also enable a more comprehensive approach to improving the energy performance of buildings (Kangas et al 2017).…”

“…Suppliers may also emphasise other sources of value for customers, such as improvements in aesthetics, comfort, health and well-being rather than energy cost savings alone (Knoeri et al 2016). ESPCs may also enable more comprehensive residential retrofit projects (Kangas et al 2017;Winther and Gurigard 2017).…”

Worth the risk? An evaluation of alternative finance mechanisms for residential retrofit

“…The lack of investment in seemingly cost effective EE measures, is commonly termed the 'energy efficiency gap' (Jaffe and Stavins, 1994). Firms, public sector actors and households are seen to underinvest in EE, due to multiple 'barriers' that constrain uptake (Kangas et al, 2018;Sorrell et al, 2004) . Although many factors that contribute to a low demand for EE are likely to be outside of what financing alone can achieve (Wilson et al, 2015), tailored financing solutions can make an important contribution to the uptake of retrofit measures (Rezessy and Bertoldi, 2010), particularly in the residential sector (Freehling and Stickles, 2016).…”