Danish Energy Efficiency Obligation

Last updated: 28 November 2019
The Danish government instituted an energy efficiency obligation to achieve an energy savings per year of 3 384 GWh and an incremental energy savings of 2.2% in comparison to total fuel consumption, achieving between 2015-2020 12.2PJ final energy per year. This obligation covers all sectors except for transportation; fuels covered are electricity, gas, district heating, and oil for heating. Obligated companies included electricity, gas and heat distributors with oil companies on a voluntary basis.
Eligible energy efficiency measures include heating systems, building fabric, ventilation, lighting, process equipment, cooling, compressed air, pumps, motors, drives, appliances, distributions systems, and collective solar installations in connection with district heating supply.
Savings are calculated on deemed savings for most household measures and scaled and metered savings for most industry projects. Obligated companies are responsible for monitoring and verification. They shall have quality control system in place. As part of this assurance, obligated companies must carry out an audit each year to ensure and demonstrate that the notified savings have been realised and documented in accordance with the agreement and the Order. In alternate years, the audit may be carried out internally by the company itself, with intervening audits being carried out externally by an independent auditor. An independent random control is made annually by the Danish Energy Agency.