•Barriers and drivers vary along the decision-making process of EEM adoption.•Economic barriers, awareness and behavioural are most critical.•Beside economic drivers, major relevance of regulatory ...and vocational training.•Importance of stakeholders providing technical support.•Barriers and drivers are different according to several firm characteristics.
Energy efficiency has been recognized as a primary means to increase the competitiveness of the industrial sector, and in particular for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), in which energy efficiency measures (EEMs) are scarcely implemented. For this reason, future policies should carefully address such issue. Hence, it is really crucial to have a precise and punctual knowledge of the barriers to be tackled in the decision-making process of adopting an EEM and the drivers to be promoted. This study discussed the findings from a broad investigation within 222 manufacturing SMEs located in a Northern Italy region. Beside economic issues particularly affecting SMEs, awareness and behavioural issues emerge as critical, affecting the very first steps of the decision-making process, related to the punctual identification and evaluation of plausible EEMs. The support from manufacturers, technology suppliers, installers and ESCOs supporting SMEs through vocational training drivers (e.g. technical support) is really important to tackle such issues. More generally, beside financial institutions, the supply chain of technologies is recognized as particularly useful for supporting enterprises in the adoption of EEMs. Additionally, having previously conducted energy audit and implemented EEMs are critical factors able to highlight non-economic barriers and drivers. Therefore, the promotion of EEMs will necessarily imply a further effort in pointing out the so-called non-energy benefits (NEBs) from the implementation of EEMs. Finally, our study reveals that smaller and non-energy intensive emerge as most critical and therefore deserve greater attention from policy-makers.
► Allowances, public financing and external pressures as major external drivers. ► Ambitious decision-makers with great entrepreneurial mind as major internal drivers. ► Effect of firm’s size (even ...within SMEs) on drivers to industrial energy efficiency. ► Preliminary evidences of the effect of firm’s internal and external complexity. ► Preliminary evidences of the effect of firm’s innovation characteristics.
Several studies have investigated the barriers to industrial energy efficiency, but few have focused on the most effective means (drivers) to promote the adoption of energy-efficient technologies and practices. In this respect, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) have been completely overlooked despite interesting consequences for their overall energy consumption and their concurrent low levels of adoption of energy-efficiency measures. Starting from insights garnered from the extant literature on the drivers of industrial energy efficiency, this paper presents an empirical investigation of 71 Italian manufacturing SMEs through a multiple case-study approach. The research highlights the importance of allowances or public financing for energy efficiency interventions, as well as the importance of external pressures such as increases in energy prices and the introduction or increasing of fees on both resources consumed and on emissions of pollutants. Moreover, enterprises look favourably upon energy-efficient technologies which are able to provide long-term benefits, evidence of their willingness to adopt seemingly radical solutions when these are able to improve their long-term competitiveness. Other drivers considered as strategic for increasing energy efficiency are the presence within the company of people with great ambition and entrepreneurial mind and the management sensitivity to the issue. This paper also provides a preliminary analysis of how factors such as firm size, sector, supply chain complexity, and innovation characteristics are or might be able to significantly affect drivers toward the adoption of energy-efficient technologies.
According to recent studies, the 20% European improvement in energy efficiency will not be achieved with current trends, even with the adoption of present policies to reduce primary energy use. This ...is due to the existence of several barriers that hinder the adoption of the energy-efficient technologies and practices. A relevant contribution to improved energy efficiency could come from the industrial sector, due to its relevance on total energy use. This study therefore addresses barriers within the European foundry industry, a major industrial energy user and a strategic player for the European economy. The research investigates the barriers to energy efficiency at 65 foundries, several of them small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), highlighting the critical problems and difficulties by evaluating the socio-technical frameworks against which the barriers have been categorized. Findings show that the greatest perceived barriers are the perception of the lack of resources to be devoted to improving energy efficiency, and the existence of other priorities such as the importance of guaranteeing business continuity. The study has also performed a preliminary analysis of the factors that might affect the perception of barriers. In particular, looking at size, smaller enterprises show a greater perception of the barriers than larger ones, mainly due to several organizational issues, but with effect on behavioural ones, that tend to downgrade energy efficiency to a peripheral issue. The study has also highlighted differences by type of alloy characterizing foundries, taken as proxy of the process complexity. Indeed, enterprises with simpler production processes tend to perceive higher barriers to energy efficiency, showing the need to identify effective means to promote energy efficiency among those enterprises. Moreover, the analysis has pointed out that performing energy audits brings more awareness to the enterprises, highlighting the effective existing difficulties in improving their energy efficiency. This result seems to be relevant since it shows the need for the research to analyze the awareness to energy efficiency in greater depth and develop the most effective policies to increase it at industrial level. Finally when looking at the country in which foundries operate, German enterprises tend to suffer from the barriers far less than the average, whilst a totally different behaviour can be observed for Swedish ones. These preliminary findings open the research to investigate in greater depth the factors leading to a different perception of barriers, and also the domestic policies that have led to those results. Moreover, the study opens to investigate which means, i.e. drivers, might be more effectively exploited at European level to promote industrial energy efficiency.
► We analyzed barriers to energy efficiency among 65 European foundries. ► Relevance of lack of resources and need for business continuity. ► Effect of size in downgrading energy efficiency as a peripheral issue. ► Energy audits as a means to increase enterprises' awareness.
The necessity to ensure energy efficiency in the industries is of significant importance to attain reduction of energy consumption and greenhouse gases emissions. Energy management is one of the ...effective features that ensure energy efficiency in the industries. Energy management models are the infancy in the industrial energy domain with practical guidelines towards implementation in the organizations. Despite the increased interest in energy efficiency, a gap exists concerning energy management literature and present application practices. This paper aims to methodologically review the energy management assessment models that facilitate the assessment of industrial energy management. In this context, the minimum requirements model, maturity model, energy management matrix model, and energy efficiency measures characterization framework are discussed with implications. The study concludes with interesting propositions for academia and industrial think tanks delineating few further research opportunities.
Understanding the factors driving the implementation of energy efficiency measures in compressed air systems is crucial to improve industrial energy efficiency, given their low implementation rate. ...Starting from a thorough review of the literature, it is thus clear the need to support companies in the decision-making process by offering an innovative framework encompassing the most relevant factors to be considered when adopting energy efficiency measures in compressed air systems, inclusive of the impacts on the production resources and the operations of a company. The framework, designed following the perspective of the industrial decision-makers, has been validated, both theoretically and empirically, and preliminarily applied to a heterogeneous cluster of manufacturing industries. Results show that, beside operational, energetic, and economic factors, in particular contextual factors such as complexity, compatibility, and observability may highlight critical features of energy efficiency measures whose absence may change the outcome of a decision-making process. Further, greater awareness and knowledge over the important factors given by the implementation of the framework could play an important role in fostering the implementation of energy efficiency measures in compressed air systems. The paper concludes with further research avenues to further promote energy efficiency and sustainability oriented practices in the industrial sector.
Industrial energy efficiency has raised to the top of European energy policy agenda, and particular efforts should be placed to tackle the barriers to energy efficiency of small and non-energy ...intensive industrial users. To enhance the adoption rate of a specific industrial energy efficiency measure, it is crucial to properly evaluate the barriers. Without a proper level of detail – considering both the measure's specificity and the evaluation's perspective – company managers are hampered when making investment decisions, and policymakers are prevented from developing the most effective policies. The paper aims at highlighting that the value of a given intervention-dependent barrier may differ when evaluating it at the company level, by technology area, or with respect to a specific measure. To achieve this objective, an exploratory investigation of Italian small and medium-sized enterprises into the metalworking sector has been performed with respect to selected cross-cutting technologies. Although general barriers appear as most relevant at the company level, large differences appear when considering intervention-dependent barriers by technology area as well as at the energy efficiency measure level. The research presents innovative results, as the literature and policymakers have not accounted so far for how the value of barriers can effectively vary with respect to a single measure, but have only considered barriers at company level. Additionally, the paper highlights that differences can be appreciated when evaluating the intervention-dependent barriers according to some firm characteristics (i.e. size, production complexity, and innovativeness). The study concludes with suggestions for policymakers as well as industrial decision-makers.
•We investigated barriers to cross-cutting EEMs in manufacturing SMEs.•Compressed air and HVAC suffer from higher barriers than lighting and motors EEMs.•Same barrier varies if evaluated at company level or with respect to a specific EEM.•Firm size, production complexity and innovativeness affect more general barriers.
The industrial sector is important to study in terms of improved energy efficiency, being one of the major energy-using sectors and responsible for a major share of CO2 emissions. The energy end-use ...(EEU) in the industrial sector is complex in general as processes are intertwined and interrelated. Moreover, bottom-up data of EEU on an aggregated level is scarce. Data for total energy supply like electricity, oil, coal, and natural gas exists but bottom-up data of what processes these energy carriers are used in, and moreover, where the major potential for implementation of energy efficiency measures (EEMs) exists, is less prevalent. This holds in particular for industrial small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This makes policy formulation and design for industry a great challenge. Knowledge on where and how energy is used, as well as where opportunities for improvement exist, may provide good support for developing the most effective policies. Therefore, the aim of this study has been to present and compare available bottom-up energy data for industrial SMEs in four countries, namely Belgium, Italy, Japan and Sweden. Results show that the existence and quality of bottom-up EEU data differs largely between the countries and the development of a general taxonomy of structuring EEU data as well as EEMs is needed. Without the development of such a general taxonomy, the deployment level of EEMs and carbon dioxide emission reductions is unlikely to ever reach its full potential as knowledge is missing on how large the potential is, in which processes the major potential is found, how far industry has reached in terms of deployment levels, and in which areas future energy policies are needed. In conclusion, this paper of EEU and EEM in industrial SMEs addresses the high importance of future research in creating a harmonized data categorization, as this will greatly support the transition towards sustainable industrial energy systems.
Increased industrial energy efficiency (EE) has become one of the main environmental actions to mitigate carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, contributing also to industrial competitiveness, with several ...implications on the production system and cost management. Unfortunately, literature is currently lacking empirical evidence on the impact of energy efficiency solutions on production. Thus, this work primarily aims at investigating the economic and production-related influence on the reduction in industrial energy consumption, considering the cross-cutting technologies HVAC, motors, lighting systems and air compressor systems. The analysis is performed using data from previous studies that characterized the main EE measures for the cross-cutting technologies. Four logistic models were built to understand how costs and production influence energy efficiency across such cross-cutting technologies. In this way, motivating industries to implement measures to reduce electrical consumption, offering an economic cost–benefit analysis and optimizing industry processes so that the reduction in electricity consumption adds to industrial energy efficiency were the aims of this study. The results of this work show through the adjusted indicators that senior management is mainly responsible for energy savings. The operational measures of each piece of equipment can be oriented in the industry towards a specific maintenance process for each technology, becoming an active procedure in industrial productions to obtain EE. Additionally, maintenance planning and control is essential to the reliability of the reduced energy consumption of cross-cutting technologies. This article concludes with managerial implications and suggestions for future research in this field.
Industrial energy efficiency has been recognized as a major contributor, in the broader set of industrial resources, to improved sustainability and circular economy. Nevertheless, the uptake of ...energy efficiency measures and practices is still quite low, due to the existence of several barriers. Research has broadly discussed them, together with their drivers. More recently, many researchers have highlighted the existence of several benefits, beyond mere energy savings, stemming from the adoption of such measures, for several stakeholders involved in the value chain of energy efficiency solutions. Nevertheless, a deep understanding of the relationships between the use of the energy resource and other resources in industry, together with the most important factors for the uptake of such measures—also in light of the implications on the industrial operations—is still lacking. However, such understanding could further stimulate the adoption of solutions for improved industrial energy efficiency and sustainability.
This paper aims at providing an identification and an analysis of the most relevant barriers to energy efficiency that limit a widespread implementation of the Best Available Technologies and ...Practices (BAT/Ps) through the investigation of 128 non-energy intensive manufacturing Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Northern Italy. The study, starting from the existing literature, performs an investigation of the operational difficulties occurring when it has been decided to undertake the process of investing resources in energy efficiency interventions. The most perceived barriers have been analyzed with respect to several important characteristics (among others, sector and firm’s size). This examination shows also that very much attention should be paid to avoid bundling together SMEs of different sizes and sectors, since different behaviors with respect to the perception of the barriers can be observed. The analysis of the sample presents some interesting trends considering the perception of the barriers with respect to previous experience of the enterprises on energy efficiency. The paper also explores, through a preliminary analysis, the correlations among questions in order to understand the dynamics and the possible effects of a given barrier with respect to others. Several suggestions for future research in this important area have been provided.
► Evidences of different behaviors with respect to energy efficiency among sectors and firm’s size (within SMEs). ► Importance, for energy efficiency barriers, of avoid bundling SMEs as a whole. ► Preliminary investigation of relationships between barriers in order to understand the dynamics.
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