Title : Streamlining energy savings calculations in the EU member states + (streamSAVE+)
Abstract:
The recast Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) has raised the ambition of Member States' energy savings obligations under Article 8, yet many national authorities still lack harmonised, ready-to-use bottom-up methodologies for calculating and verifying savings from technical actions in fast-evolving sectors. streamSAVE+ (Streamlining Energy Savings Calculations in the EU Member States +), an EU LIFE-funded project running from 2024 to 2027 and led by a consortium of 10 partner organisations from 9 countries, addresses this gap by building on the completed H2020 streamSAVE project's 10 original priority actions and developing harmonised bottom-up calculation methodologies for 5 new priority actions. Deep renovation covers the comprehensive, structural upgrading of residential and non-residential buildings, going beyond cosmetic measures to substantially reduce primary energy consumption, with a calculation framework that compares building energy performance before and after renovation. Heat recovery in ventilation units addresses the replacement, upgrade or adaptation of ventilation systems to incorporate heat recovery technology, estimating the resulting reduction in space heating final energy consumption; the methodology follows the Ecodesign Directive's (EU 1253/2014) definition of ventilation units and applies indicative values differentiated by building type and by three European climate zones. Data centres, one of the fastest-growing sources of electricity demand in the EU, are covered by two closely related new priority actions. IT efficiency estimates savings from measures such as virtualisation, server consolidation, hardware modernisation, workload optimisation and energy-aware system management, comparing electricity use before and after implementation across servers, storage and network systems, with combined effects of multiple measures calculated multiplicatively. DC cooling uses Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) as its core metric, comparing PUE before and after measures such as replacing legacy CRAC units, optimising airflow, or adopting free or liquid cooling, to isolate savings in the non-IT energy overhead of cooling, power distribution and lighting. Public traffic management provides a methodology for four categories of measures: active traffic management of recurrent and non-recurrent congestion, active demand management to redistribute travel to alternative modes, routes or off-peak periods, active parking management, and traffic-calming measures to reduce vehicle speeds and volumes, with boundary conditions defined individually according to the design of each implemented measure. Together, these five new methodologies extend the streamSAVE+ knowledge hub and online platform, giving public authorities across all Member States practical, comparable and auditable tools for reporting energy savings in sectors where robust calculation approaches have so far been limited, supporting the achievement of the EU's binding 2030 energy efficiency targets.
