Survey confirms effectiveness of energy audits: companies see short-term profitability

2023-11-30 16:00:32

Vienna (OTS) – The EU Energy Efficiency Directive requires companies with over 250 employees to carry out regular energy audits. As part of the KNOWnNEBs project, e7 is researching their advantages. According to a survey, 76% of those surveyed see economic efficiency as already achieved through short-term measures. Austria adopted the directive in 2014, but political disagreement led to uncertainty until the new energy efficiency law in June 2023.

However, the next amendment to the Energy Efficiency Act is expected in October. The new legislation is expected to affect 30-40% more companies defined by their energy consumption. However, due to a lack of political and economic support, energy audits are often viewed only as a legal obligation and not as a valuable tool.

Current audit approaches focus primarily on direct energy savings, but neglect non-energy benefits such as product quality and productivity. The EU research project KNOWnNEBs is therefore investigating the added value of non-energy benefits (NEBs) in order to use knowledge about them to increase the acceptance of the audits. More than 500 international experts were surveyed and the main reasons for conducting audits were reducing energy costs, financial incentives and legal obligations.

The results show: 76.4% of those surveyed are of the opinion that audits pay off through short-term measures. Examples such as UNIQA and OMV also show high savings. 46% know of examples in which energy audits have led to a significant gain in knowledge, 55.3% have seen operational changes as a result of audits, while 18.8% do not know this.