Most information on the transport sector in Article 7 EED can be found in the Study on national policies reported in the transport sector under Article 7 of the Energy Efficiency Directive and energy savings potential for the period 2021-2030 by Ricardo Energy and Environment.
Key findings include:
- The policy measures implemented by the Member States under Article 7 of the EED are estimated to deliver nearly 23 Mtoe of cumulative energy savings in the transport sector from 2014 to 2020 (9% of the total cumulative savings) or 0.8 Mtoe of new savings per year (assuming an equal distribution of new savings over the period).
- This contribution is rather small given that the transport sector currently represents approximately 30% of final energy consumption in the EU.
- Under Article 7 of the EED to date, the transport-related energy savings are dominated by energy and CO2 taxes – this policy measure accounts for 67% of the transport savings in the period 2014-2020.
- Under the combined SULTAN Member State policy scenario, which combines a variety of policy measures, Member State policies are expected to deliver an estimated 3 Mtoe new annual energy savings on average over the whole new obligation period 2021-2030 under Article 7.
- The list of policy measures under this scenario is, however, not exhaustive – further Member State policy actions to reduce transport energy consumption are conceivable.
- Energy and CO2 taxes will deliver additional energy savings beyond those estimated in the SULTAN scenarios. Based on the savings estimated for these measures from Article 7 notifications over the 2014 -2020 period, these savings may be of the order of 0.5 Mtoe per year.
- The Member State policies covered in the SULTAN scenarios could be complemented by Member State clean vehicle policies. While there are methodological challenges in demonstrating the additionality of these policies to the EU-level vehicle CO2 emission standards, the savings deriving from Member State ambitious clean vehicle policies could amount to 1Mtoe of new savings per year.
- The potential savings from Member State policies over the new Article 7 obligation period 2021- 2030, coupled with clean vehicles policies and continued use of energy and CO2 taxes, could deliver sufficient energy savings to cover the level of savings associated with the removal of the transport exemption from Article 7 in the new obligation period.