Q&A - Interpretation

All sectors

• Why economic related indicators (intensities) are compared at purchasing power parities?

  For countries’ comparison, energy intensities have to be measured in the same monetary unit (€, $) by converting national currencies in €, $. The conversion with market exchange rates raises two problems:

  • Market exchange rates vary quite a lot independently of the economic performance of countries which affect the relative energy intensity values between countries (their “ranking”)
  • The conversion does not reflect the fact that in less developed countries consumer prices are on average much lower than in more developed countries.

  The use of Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) improves the comparison as it does not fluctuate and accounts for the real purchasing power of incomes.

Transport

• What is the best economic indicator to measure activity in the transport sector?

  Transport energy consumption results from the activity of various modes of transportation. Therefore, there is not a good sectorial indicator of activity. The value added of transport only refers to the activity of transport companies, which drives part of the consumption of trucks and all the consumption of rail, water and air transport. All the consumption of cars and light duty vehicles has nothing to do with the value added of transport sector, which represents almost half of the consumption of the sector. Therefore the best economic indicator to measure the activity of the transport sector is the GDP.

• Why did the specific consumption of new cars decrease faster since 2007?

  The reduction in the specific consumption of new cars has accelerated since 2007 (- 3.7% per year compared to 1.5% between 2000 and 2007 at EU level), mainly because of EU regulations on labelling and emission standards and national fiscal policies promoting the purchase of low emission cars (see the trends at http://www.odyssee-mure.eu/publications/policy-brief/transport-efficiency-trends.html ).

• Why did the share of public transport in passengers traffic decrease for countries in Eastern Europe between 2000 and 2014?

  The opening of the economies in Eastern European countries in the mid 90’s resulted in a fast progression of car ownership and, as a result, in a lower use of public transport.

• Why the unit consumption of trucks per tonne-km increased during the economic crisis?

  Energy efficiency progress has slowed down for trucks and light goods vehicles since 2005 and even has virtually stopped since 2007: the fall in freight activity (by 2.5%/year over 2007-2012) led to less efficient operation of the vehicle fleet (trucks less loaded with increased empty running).

• What is the impact of the load factor in transport energy efficiency?

  The impact of load factor depends on the indicators used to measure energy efficiency. For cars an increase in the load factor will reduce the consumption per passenger-km but not the consumption in litre/100 km or in goe/km. If the first indicator is used, an increase in the load factor results in energy efficiency improvement. With the two other indicators, there is no impact on energy efficiency. The same reasoning applied for trucks (i.e. road transport of goods).

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  Related question

  • Why the unit consumption of trucks per tonne-km increased during the economic crisis?

Households

• Why is consumption of electrical appliances per dwelling increasing over the last decades?

  The consumption of electrical appliances per dwelling is mainly determined by two main drivers: on the one hand, the change in the number of appliances owned per households (“equipment ownership”), that contribute to raise that consumption (“activity effect”); on the other hand, the variation in the average annual consumption per appliance (“specific consumption”), that usually contributes to reduce this consumption due to the increased efficiency of appliances (“efficiency effect”). In the last decades, the activity effect has been greater than the efficiency effect, mainly because of the spread of a variety of small appliances resulting in an overall increase in the consumption of electrical appliances per dwelling. For more information see http://www.odyssee-mure.eu/publications/efficiency-by-sector/households/energy-consumption-large-appliances-dwelling.html and http://www.indicators.odyssee-mure.eu/decomposition.html (sector household; sub-sector electrical appliances).

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  Related question

  • What are the different explanatory factors of energy consumption variation in residential sector?

  
  Link to tool

Services

• Why few information is available by sector in the service sector in Odyssee?

  In this sector there is generally a lack of disaggregated data by sub-sector and by end-use. Little effort has been done so far to improve the situation as it consumed a small part of the consumption, for instance compared to industry, where there is a long tradition of surveys to get data by industrial branch. 

All sectors

• What is the difference between labels and MEPS?

  MEPS is the abbreviation for “minimum energy performance standard”. MEPS are used to give minimum performance or efficiency requirements for different devices or constructions such as electric engines, cars or buildings. As long those requirements are fulfilled, the device or constructions follows the MEPS. The use of labels differs to MEPS in such a way that it does not require minimum performances. It rather grades the performances of devices or constructions. Exemplary for this is the “EU Energy Label”. Good performances are graded higher than bad ones.

  Labels and MEPS can also be combined. For example, governments can enact policies which only allow the sale of devices which have at least a performance with a certain minimal grading.

• How does “General Cross-Cutting” differ from “All Sectors”?

  “General Cross-Cutting” is only listing measures which are applicable for multiple sectors, while the category “All Sectors” lists all measures of all sectors regardless of applicability.

• What is the difference between the search by period, period weighted by semi-quantitative impact and semi-quantitative impact?

  The search by period in the radar graphs tool shows the number and type of measures issued or proposed starting from the selected starting year. Depending on the selected number of periods the years are divided into different time periods.

  When the period graph is weighted by the semi-quantitative impact the measures in the time periods get weighted depending on the semi-quantitative impact which was given to them (low, medium, high).

  The search by semi-quantitative impact shows the number of measures with high, medium or low semi-quantitative impact, depending on the selected starting year.

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  Related question

  • What is the “Number of periods” referring to? (Radar Graphs)
  • Why is « All Sectors » not available in the radar graphs tool?
• What is the difference between semi quantitative impact and impact evaluation?

  Impact evaluation data is posted as expected total savings of the measure either in PJ Energy or kt Co2eq. emissions (also both can apply) compared either with a fixed year or to a reference development. The semi-quantitative impact in difference is no absolute evaluation of the impact. Each measure posted to MURE is requested to have an expert judgement on its semi-quantitative impact. The exact definition of the semi-quantitative impact can be seen at “How do you evaluate the semi quantitative impact?”.