23 November 2015: The International Energy Agency (IEA) and International Partnership for Energy Efficiency Cooperation (IPEEC) have co-published a report, titled ‘Building Energy Performance Metrics: Supporting Energy Efficiency Progress in Major Economies,’ which lays out the current state of energy performance in buildings over the period 2000-2012. The report finds that efficiency could save the equivalent of building energy use in China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK and the US combined annually.

An estimated 70% of these savings could be achieved by the 17 countries in the Major Economies Forum (MEF) alone between 2015 and 2050, according to the report. With the exception of the UK and Germany, energy use grew in the buildings sector in all the major economies evaluated. The drivers, as determined by the report, include population growth, building sector size, economic activity, building energy policy, increased use of electronics and appliances, and expanded grid access.

Implementing energy efficiency measures could help decouple energy use growth from these drivers, the authors say. The identified potential of greater than 50 exajoules per year in savings would also lower electricity and fuel costs for businesses and households, increase reliability and minimize costly disruptions, and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other pollutants that threaten human health, according to the IEA.

In addition to MEF economies, the report examined Group of Twenty (G20) countries that are not part of the MEF (Argentina, Saudi Arabia and Turkey) and 2014 G20 guests New Zealand, Singapore and Spain. The report not only analyzes the building sector in aggregate but also divides it by residential and services buildings. [IEA Press Release] [IEA Publication Webpage] [Publication: Building Energy Performance Metrics: Supporting Energy Efficiency Progress in Major Economies]