Paolo Bertoldi

European Commission | ec · Joint Research Centre (JRC)

Energy efficiency in buildings has a central role to play in reaching the climate neutrality goal set by the European Green Deal. With detailed knowledge of their building stock and the profile of their occupants, regional and local authorities can forge an important link between financiers, industry professionals and homeowners to ensure the succe...

Strategic policy planning has gained increasing importance in international energy and climate policy. This paper aims to contribute to the debate on stringent policy planning by drawing lessons learned from two decades of strategy development in the field of European energy efficiency policy. Since the inception of the first national energy effici...

Assessing the world’s collective progress towards the Paris Agreement’s long-term goals is a global priority. Local authorities (LAs), in particular, play an important role in a just transition. This paper evaluates the real achievements of local climate action plans developed in Europe from 2008 to 2020 under the Covenant of Mayors initiative. On...

Cities and local authorities are key players in addressing climate change. Since 2008, the European Commission (EC) endorses and supports their efforts through the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (CoM) and notably through the provision of capacity building, technical assistance, sharing of best practices and peer learning opportunities. T...

The Summary for Urban Policymakers (SUP) series distils the IPCC reports into targeted summaries to inform action at the city and regional scale. This third volume in the series, What the Latest Science on Climate Change Mitigation Means for Cities and Urban Areas offers a concise and accessible distillation of the IPCC Working Group III Report for...

Mitigation option are not yet being implemented at the scale required to limit global warming to well below 2°C. Various factors have been identified that inhibit the implementation of specific mitigation options. Yet, an integrated assessment of key barriers and enablers is lacking. Here we present a comprehensive framework to assess which factors...

Accommodating an increased share of electricity generated from renewable resources on the one hand, and more active consumers on the other hand, puts pressure on the electric grids in the EU and requires the system to become more flexible. Demand-side flexibility can be cheaper than investments in the transmission or distribution networks, and incl...

PV-based concepts are transcending their typical applications in the stationary energy and energy generation sectors, pervading all the main sectors that are responsible for greenhouse gas emissions in cities. Cities are uniquely positioned to tackle global issues at the local level as they control and/or have the autonomy to target the highest emi...

The building sector has a central role in achieving the European goals of a zero-emission and fully decarbonized stock by 2050. Among the provisions of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) recast, the implementation of the cost-optimal methodology marked a novel approach in the establishment of minimum energy performance requirement...

The Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy in Sub-Saharan Africa (CoM SSA) is one of the regional chapters of the Global Covenant of Mayors (GCoM). Under the CoM SSA local authorities are invited to make a voluntary political commitment to implement climate and energy actions in their communities and agree on a long-term vision to tackle 3 pilla...

Under the Global Covenant of Mayors (GCoM) initiative, cities present their action plans committing to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and/or adapt to climate change. One concrete objective consists in setting a reduction target, by which cities commit to reduce their baseline GHG emissions for a chosen target year. In monitoring their emis...

Climate neutrality is one of the greatest challenges of our century, and a decarbonised energy system is a key step towards this goal. To this end, the electricity system is expected to become more interconnected, digitalised, and flexible by engaging consumers both through microgeneration and through demand side flexibility. A successful use of th...

The Global Covenant of Mayors in Southeast Asia (GCoM SEA) supports Malaysian local authorities in the climate challenge and in their efforts in building more sustainable and resilient communities. It is the "regional covenant" of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (GCoM). Under the GCoM SEA, local authorities are invited to take a...

Cities and local authorities are key players in implementing the clean energy transition and addressing climate change. Since 2008, the European Commission endorses and supports their efforts through the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (CoM) and notably through the provision of capacity building, technical assistance, sharing of best prac...

The EU has to drastically accelerate the clean energy transition and increase Europe's energy independence from fossil fuels – and from Russia. This focus is not new: decarbonisation of industry is a key element on the EU’s path to achieving the objective of climate neutrality by 2050 and an intermediate target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions...

There is a strong consent among scholars and policy makers that limiting current global energy demand and gradually reducing it towards a sustainable level of consumption is a key component of any strategies and pathways to reach the Paris Agreement climate target, and, in particular, carbon neutrality by mid-century. Given the stringency and urgen...

The feasibility assessment (FA) presents a systematic framework to assess adaptation and mitigation options organised by system transitions. This Cross-Chapter Box assessed the feasibility of 23 adaptation options across six dimensions: economic, technological, institutional, socio-cultural, environmental-ecological, and geophysical to identify fac...

The Climate Change urgency requires a swift reduction of energy consumption. One way to achieve this is through increased energy efficiency. Over the past decades, the debate on how to encourage energy efficiency has been guided by the physical-technical-economic model, which has a strong focus on technologies and cost savings, and in which human b...

One example of a way for citizens to contribute to the low-carbon energy transition is by investing in energy efficiency (EE). However, there are still multiple barriers that make the socially optimal level of adoption a complex target to achieve. Over the past three decades, the debate on how to encourage EE has been guided by the physical–technic...

How to ensure success for climate change mitigation policies? For the past decades, local climate action has been amongst the main global priorities. The Covenant of Mayors initiative is a major example of bottom-up climate initiative gathering municipalities of all sizes towards GHG reduction under a harmonised framework. Now, after the end of the...

It is widely recognised that much of the energy we use in buildings is largely wasted due to old construction practices, many of which preceded the adoption of energy performance standards. With over 80% of today’s buildings expected to be still in use in Europe by 2050, the building sector must be at the centre of decarbonisation efforts in the EU...

This data article refers to the paper "Assessing Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (NZEBs) development in Europe" [1]. Data linked with this article relate to collected best practices NZEBs throughout Europe. Data on building geometry, year of construction or renovation, primary energy consumption, saving percentages, renewable production, heating deman...

Cities representing more than one third of the EU population have already developed their mitigation action plans with the support of the Covenant of Mayors initiative. This study digs into the drivers leading European cities in setting ambitious GHG reduction targets by 2030. A total number of 246 local action plans, accepted in the Covenant of Ma...

This technical report proposes a set of good practices to improve the energy efficiency of cyber-physical applications – making use of IoT, AI, and Digital Twins. First, the report introduces the cyber-physical paradigm, engineering reference framework, and a couple of system deployments models. Secondly, it defines three end-to-end use case typolo...

The Paris Agreement has underlined the role of cities in combating climate change. The Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (GCoM) is the largest international initiative dedicated to promoting climate action at a city level, covering globally over 10 000 cities and almost half the population of the European Union (EU) by end of March 202...

This report is the second part of a Europe-wide survey and assessment of one-stop shops (OSS) for energy renovation of buildings. Based on the case studies of 63 OSS in the EU, we find that the approach has a potential to cover 5-6% of the renovation volume of 35 million buildings in 2030 set out by the Renovation Wave Strategy , at low social cost...

With energy transition setting the ground for innovation and new ways of conducting business, one-stop shops (OSSs) have recently gained momentum in the renovation market. By transforming a complex set of multiple-actor decisions into a single entry and customer-centric service, OSSs have the potential of establishing a bridge between the fragmente...

The Regional Covenant of Mayors for Mediterranean (CoM Med) is an alliance of local municipalities from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, supporting cities committed to develop a climate resilient society. The CoM Med, supported by the European Commission, is part of the Global Covenant of Mayors (GCoM), the largest coalition of citie...

Decarbonising the energy sector is crucial to reach future climate and energy goals. As established by the Energy Performance of Building Directive recast, Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (NZEBs) are the mandatory building target in Europe for all new buildings from 2021 onwards. In the light of the approaching deadline, this paper assesses the develo...

The Paris Agreement has underlined the role of cities in combating climate change. The Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (GCoM) is the largest dedicated international initiative to promote climate action at city level, covering globally over 10,000 cities and almost half the population of the European Union (EU) by end of March 2020....

This report aims to understand how to handle energy performance targets by moving beyond individual buildings towards a district level. This is a relatively new endeavour in both scientific research and realised projects. One route towards this could be to have the minimum energy performance requirements imposed by the EPBD also be applied to a clu...

The untapped / hidden benefits of environmental policies are huge, this piece of research showcases and places a monetary value on the added benefits to our health, society and the economy that environmental investments and policy linked to energy efficiency can bring. Findings show that green policies can improve both our health and the economy an...

The Covenant of Mayors (CoM) is a successful European initiative which encourages local authorities to be proactive in fighting climate change. Recently, it expanded to cover adaptation and energy access/poverty and became a global initiative. In this study we investigate an additional perspective: synergies and trade-offs between climate and air q...

This data article relates to and complement the research paper: "Assessment of climate change mitigation policies in 315 cities in the Covenant of Mayors initiative" [1]. The reported data has been collected and elaborated within the framework of the Covenant of Mayors (CoM) initiative. The dataset is extracted from the overall database of the init...

The reduction of energy demand in buildings through the adoption of energy efficiency policy is a key pillar of the European Union (EU) climate and energy strategy. Energy efficiency first emerged in the EU energy policy agenda in the 1970s and was progressively transformed with shifting global and EU energy and climate policies and priorities. The...

The Paris Agreement goals require net‐zero CO2 emissions by mid‐century. The European Commission in its recent proposal for climate and energy strategy for 2050 indicated the need for more intensified actions to substantially improve the energy performances of buildings. With the rate of new construction in Europe, the challenge is to increase both...

The Paris agreement recognises the key role of local authorities in reaching the 1,5 °C target. The Covenant of Mayors (CoM) has been an unprecedented phenomenon in the arena of transnational initiatives in climate action at local level. The initiative has expanded tremendously over the past 10 years, covering more than 9 600 local authorities and...

This report discusses the progress towards the 2020 Energy Efficiency targets and the implementation of the provisions of the Energy Efficiency Directive 2012/27/EU (EED), providing an overview of the main energy trends in the European Union with special focus on the period 2005-2017. It is based on the latest available EUROSTAT data and on the inf...

Over the last two decades, the European Union and its Member States have introduced policies aimed at improving energy efficiency. The Energy Service Directives (ESD) introduced the concept of measurement of energy savings attributed to policies. Two different and complementary methodologies for the evaluation of energy savings have been developed...

These proceedings present fourteen peer-reviewed papers from the 10th International Conference on Improving Energy Efficiency in Commercial Buildings and Smart Communities, which was held March 21-22, 2018 in Frankfurt, Germany. This biannual conference aims to promote and diffuse the concept of energy efficiency in new and existing commercial buil...

In order to achieve the goal of the Paris Agreement and reduce energy consumption there is the need for a behavior change in energy end-users. Many studies have demonstrated that by delivering to energy users customized feedback on their energy consumption it can encourage a change in their behavior and support investments in energy efficiency and...

The Covenant of Mayors in Sub-Saharan Africa (CoM SSA) supports local authorities in Sub-Saharan Africa in the climate challenge and in their efforts in ensuring access to clean energy. It is one of the "Regional Covenant" of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (GCoM).This document has been prepared to assist Sub-Saharan Africa local...

This report is an initiative of the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the science and knowledge service of the European Commission (EC), supported by the Commission’s Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO). It highlights drivers shaping the urban future, identifying both the key challenges cities will have to address and the streng...

This article analyses the status and trends of the European Union (EU) residential energy consumption in light of the energy consumption targets set by the EU 2020 and 2030 energy and climate strategies. It assesses the energy efficiency progress from 2000 to 2016, using the official Eurostat data. In 2016, the residential energy consumption amount...

Local authorities and cities are at the forefront of driving the energy transition, which plays a crucial role in mitigating the effects of climate change. The greenhouse gas emissions in cities, due to energy consumption, are placed into two categories: direct emissions generated from the combustion of fossil fuels mainly in buildings and transpor...

This report discusses the progress towards the 2020 Energy Efficiency targets and towards the implementation of the provisions of the Energy Efficiency Directive 2012/27/EU (EED), providing an overview of the main energy trends in the European Union with special focus on the period 2005-2016. It is based on the last EUROSTAT data available and on t...

The report assesses the Second National Energy Efficiency Action Plans submitted by Member States in 2017 (NEEAP 2017) in compliance with Article 24 of the Energy Efficiency Directive (Directive 2012/27/EU). The Energy Efficiency Directive introduced the requirement to set indicative targets for 2020 and binding measures in various sectors of the e...

EU member states have been encouraged to introduce energy efficiency obligation schemes (EEOS) to help meet energy saving objectives. As a result, there are now 15 EU EEOS in existence, compared with just six prior to the introduction of the 2012 Energy Efficiency Directive. At the same time, the long-standing EEOS in Denmark and the UK have faced...

Building on its previous reports, investigating the status of the ESCO market in the EU, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) reviewed the efforts made by Member States to stimulate the market of energy services in the broad sense, focusing on the compliance with Article 18, and has collected and updated current knowledge on the ESCO markets, in particu...

This report aims at showing the present status of energy consumption in the EU-28, in the four main energy consuming sectors: residential, tertiary, transport and industry. During the last years, there have been efforts by the European Union to cut down on energy consumption and improve energy efficiency in the framework of the EU energy consumptio...

We are only at the beginning of a rapid period of transformation of our economy and society due to the convergence of many digital technologies. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is central to this change and offers major opportunities to improve our lives. The recent developments in AI are the result of increased processing power, improvements in algor...