This report is the first report of the ‘Energy Savings 2030’-project which seeks to help the Coalition for Energy Savings to produce a robust and timely input to the 2030 policy discussion. It brings together and summarises recent empirical evidence on costs and benefits of energy efficiency measures. The evidence gap in terms of reliable ex-post data is well known. In the majority of cases results from ex-ante modelling studies inform the debate. The research carried out for this report confirms the persistent gap in publicly available ex-post evaluations of energy efficiency programmes.

The economics of energy efficiency programmes have been subject to considerable academic debate lasting well over three decades now. In this paper, we contribute to this debate by reviewing the costs and benefits of a specific type of policy+ instrument that recently gained significant traction in Europe – Energy Efficiency Obligations - EEOs. Following the introduction of the EU Energy Efficiency Directive in 2012 the number of EEOs in Europe has grown from five schemes to now 16 EEOs in operation or planned across the EU.