Exploring the effects of ‘Green Energy Economy’ policies for transforming the Swedish building stock

Following the 2008–2009 global financial crisis, ‘green energy economy’ packages have been implemented to stimulate sustainable economic growth in several Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Clearly focused on the energy sector, these packages typically include energy-efficiency policy measures and aim to encourage the transition towards a low-carbon economy. We take the Swedish single- and two-household residential sector as a case study for an ex-ante assessment of ‘green energy’ policies that target energy efficiency improvements. We use the EEB_Sweden v1.0 modelling tool to quantitatively evaluate various green energy policy scenarios. We simulate two baselines and three policy scenarios in order to predict the extent to which green policy measures (e.g. ‘Net Zero Energy Building’ regulations) can change energy use patterns. The model implemented financial and non-financial determinants of technology choice. Our results suggest that technology-specific policies (e.g. subsidies for energy-efficient windows or solar photovoltaics) are insufficient to stimulate homeowners to make radical changes. In fact, we find that microeconomic decision-makers respond much better to systemic policy instruments, in particular maximum energy thresholds for whole buildings