The additional benefits of energy efficiency investments—a systematic literature review and a framework for categorisation

Investments in industrial energy efficiency areessential for meeting future energy needs. Nevertheless, theindustrial sector’s current efforts in energy efficiency investmentsare insufficient. Additional benefits of energy efficiencyinvestments have been suggested to improve thefinancial attractiveness of energy efficiency investments.Yet, previous research indicates that not all benefits areincludedwhen investment opportunities are evaluated, leadingto an underestimation of what a firm will gain from theinvestment. Additionally, previous research lacks conceptualframeworks for describing these additional benefits at anearly stage in the investment process. Moreover, variousbenefit terms are found in currently existing research, butthere are a lack of definitions and distinctions attributed tothese terms. Therefore, this paper provides a systematicreview on the benefit terms of energy efficiency investments,establishes non-energy benefits as the term mostrelevant for such investments and provides a new definitionof the concept. Further, a new framework for categorisingnon-energy benefits to enable them to be included duringthe investment process is developed, in which the level ofquantifiability and time frame of the non-energy benefits aretaken into account. Including non-energy benefits in theinvestment process can make energy efficiency investmentsmore attractive and increase their priority against otherinvestments. Moreover, non-energy benefits can reinforcedrivers as well as counterbalance known barriers to energyefficiency investments. Acknowledging non-energy benefitscan thus contribute to an increased adoption level forenergy efficiency investmentsA previous version of this article was originally presented as aconference paper at the ECEEE 2014 Industrial Summer Studyand published in the ECEEE 2014 Industrial Summer Studyproceedings (Rasmussen J. (2014). Energy-efficiency investmentsand and the concepts of non-energy benefits and investment behaviour.Proceedings ECEEE Industrial Summer Study - Retoolfor a Competitive and Sustainable Industry, 733–744Funding agencies: Swedish Energy Agency; Department for Management and Engineering at Linkoping University