Czechia still overlooks energy savings. It will certainly fail to meet its new savings target for 2020

At the end of April, a new report on meeting national energy efficiency targets was released. Apart from cosmetic adjustments, Czechia has once again failed to intervene in the overall system for improving energy efficiency and is now almost certain to be unable to meet its binding savings target for 2020.

Under the 2012 Energy Efficiency Directive 2012/27/EU, European Union member states are required to achieve new energy savings. They must also report annually on developments and progress in energy efficiency.

“The current analysis of compliance with the obligation shows that 29.6 PJ of new energy savings were achieved over the 2014-2018 period. Czechia thus achieved 70 PJ of cumulative energy savings over the 2014-2018 period,” the Ministry of Industry and Trade states in its report.

However, Czechia must achieve a total of 51.1 PJ of new savings and 204.39 PJ of cumulative savings by the end of 2020. It is therefore clear that it will not reach its target.

Since the previous report, covering 2017, there have again been minor changes to savings already reported under individual programmes. The key new measure is called the Environmental Fuel Tax, which was expected to achieve a total of 6.2 PJ of energy savings retrospectively from 2014.

For the quantification of this measure, the Prague University of Economics and Business prepared an expert study that determines savings based on the difference between projected fuel consumption without the application of excise duty and actual fuel consumption. In addition, a total of 583.1 TJ was reported under the measure Ban on placing on the market solid-fuel boilers in the 1st and 2nd emissions classes.

New savings achieved in PJ according to individual Ministry of Industry and Trade reports:

Given the low political importance of the issue, limited public awareness and the complexity of subsidy programmes, significant improvements in energy savings cannot be expected in the future.