Publication: Power More with Less: Scaling Up Energy Efficiency for Growth and Energy Security
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2025-06-04
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2025-06-04
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This approach paper advocates for energy efficiency (EE) to be prioritized and scaled up—necessitating its elevation in energy sector policies, targets and programs, for both low- and middle-income countries (LICs and MICs). It draws on the lessons learned through the World Bank Group’s (WBG’s) EE engagements since 2010 and offers guiding parameters for policymakers, development partners, and the private sector to use in scaling up demand-side EE globally in end-use sectors including public facilities, households, and industry—and the role the WBG can play to enable this.
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“World Bank. 2025. Power More with Less: Scaling Up Energy Efficiency for Growth and Energy Security. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/43292 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”
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Publication Western Balkans : Scaling Up Energy Efficiency in Buildings(Washington, DC, 2014-06)Within the six countries of the Western Balkans, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia, energy efficiency (EE) is increasingly seen as a key pillar in national energy strategies, helping to enhance energy security, contribute to economic growth, and ensure environmental sustainability. This is for several reasons. EE can reduce the region's heavy reliance on expensive imports, enhance competitiveness and job creation, and reduce the impact of widespread fossil fuel use. EE can also bring important social benefits, helping to improve local air quality (mitigating related adverse health impacts), improve indoor comfort levels through improved heating, and make energy more affordable for low-income families. Finally, EE is seen as a critical tool in helping to mitigate the effects of necessary and planned tariff reforms by offsetting the higher energy costs to the entire economy. To realize these benefits, the Western Balkans countries will have to shift from broad policies and small-scale pilots to scaled-up financing and implementation. There is an urgent need to develop viable financing models in all sectors, as well as suitable delivery mechanisms, information systems, and necessary secondary legislation, in order to meet national targets and fuel economic development in a more sustainable manner. Buildings, which account for almost half of energy use in the regions, have been identified as a key sector in all of the country EE plans.Publication Financing Energy Efficiency Measures for Residential Building Stock : Scaling Up Energy Efficiency in Buildings in the Western Balkans(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-05)Within the Western Balkans region, a secure energy supply is critical to sustaining economic growth. Currently, the region relies heavily on imported hydrocarbons and maintains high energy intensity relative to Gross Domestic Product, or GDP. This places a huge burden on companies, which require affordable and reliable infrastructure services to be competitive; the public sector, which spends significant budgetary resources on energy; and households, which have to pay a high portion of their income for energy services. As energy pricing is further rationalized, a higher burden will be placed on all sectors, especially poorer households. The residential sector is a significant energy consumer. Its share of total final energy consumption ranges from 28 percent to 32 percent (compared with the EU average of 27 percent). Fairly simple renovations such as insulation, heating system upgrades, and improvements to windows and lighting could reduce consumption in this sector by some 9 percent, with payback periods generally less than 8 years. Such improvements could help ease the impact of future tariff increases while helping reduce the region's projected energy supply and demand gap.Publication Energy Efficiency for Sustainable Development : Scale Up Strategy and Action Plan(Washington, DC, 2005-12)This study describes the Energy Efficiency for Sustainable Development (EEfSD) action plan, to scale up energy efficiency operations in client countries. The EEfSD strategy comprises of interventions at three levels: policy and regulatory, sector and sub-sector, and at end-use equipment and appliances. It is structured along four tracks: integrating energy efficiency within economic and sector work; mainstreaming energy efficiency in investment operations; improving internal operational, learning and analytic capacity; and monitoring, evaluation, and outreach. Priority focus is on countries with highest energy intensities, where rapid growth of the energy sector is expected and where total energy use is greatest. Implementation of the action plan will be guided by the Energy, Transport and Water Department, and will require cooperation and collaboration across the Bank Group, in particular the regional operations units. This paper presents the estimated incremental costs for FY07-09 which have been committed from energy trust funds and Bank budget.Publication The Energy Efficiency Investment Forum : Scaling Up Financing in the Developing World(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-10)The document contains the proceedings of the Energy Investment Forum conference, The Forum was held to discuss option and explore opportunities for improving access to investment capital and financing for energy efficiency in developing countries. The Forum was held New York City, New York, as a side event to the 14th meeting of the Commission of Sustainable Developments as one of its core themes. Over the two-day session, participants were able to preset and debate the state of the global energy efficiency market and to explore its relevance in the broader global energy debate. Topics addressed included : energy efficiency issues and opportunities; country experiences in promoting energy efficiency; market-based approaches for utility, building and industry sectors; financing energy efficiency; innovative financial structures; and mobilizing local capita markets. The key outcome of the Forum was a call for significant scale-up of energy efficiency investment in the developing world. Recognize that a kW (Kilowatt) save is cheaper, cleaner and more immediate than a kW generated, Forum participants called upon stakeholders to support an aggressive global campaign to increase the use of energy efficient products and practices.Publication Energy Services Market Development : Scaling Up Energy Efficiency in Buildings in the Western Balkans(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-05-01)The development of private sector energy service providers (ESPs), including energy service companies (ESCOs), that specialize in energy efficiency (EE) project development and implementation can help overcome some of the important barriers to scaling up implementation of energy efficiency (EE) projects, particularly in the public sector. ESPs can offer a range of services spanning the energy services value chain and provide the technical skills and resources needed to identify and implement EE opportunities, perform services using performance based contracts (thereby reducing the risks to the energy users), facilitate access to financing from commercial lenders, and enable the energy users to pay for the services from the cost savings achieved. This guidance note provides examples of actions taken by governments in many countries (such as Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, and India) to foster the energy services market and help establish and grow ESPs in their countries. Experience from these countries shows that governments need to adopt a three-pronged approach, involving policy and regulatory initiatives, technical assistance (TA), and financing strategies, to build ESP and public agency capacity, implement ESP projects in the public sector, and provide the platform for moving to more complex implementation and financing models in the future. TA or financing alone does not offer an effective strategy to overcome the multidimensional challenges of ESP market development; efforts in all three areas are needed. Key conclusions of this guidance note are that: (i) there is no specific formula that can be prescribed to instruct governments on how to develop energy services markets; and (ii) fostering the ESP market requires governments to undertake a concerted set of legislative, regulatory, policy, financing, and awareness and information initiatives.
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