Co-operative and technology procurement was identified as one of the new key policy measures in the Energy Efficiency Action plan issued by the European Commission last year.
The present project aims to build upon the procurement concept developed in the extremely successful two year Save II funded pilot project, "Aggregated purchase at European level for A-rated fridge/freezers", more widely know as Energy+, which came to a close in June 2001. Energy+ is a procurement initiative involving the full spectrum of market actors (manufacturers, retailers, national and European authorities, environmental and consumer organisations) in 10 EU countries, which for the first time has implemented a procurement action at European level. The project has shown that, given inspired objectives defined in line with European Policy, market actors can in a very short time (< 12 months) develop and introduce tangible marketable highly energy efficient products. Energy+ has led directly to the introduction of the 16 most efficient fridge-freezers (with net volume between 200 and 300 litres) onto the European market by four of the most important European white goods manufacturers. On the buyers' side, retailers representing more than 15.000 retail outlets and housing associations representing over 1 million dwellings were involved. The project was also supported by many of Europe's most prestigious environmental and consumer associations, as well as European and national authorities. As such the project provided an extremely positive example of "subsidiarity". More details about the Energy+ project can be found on the project's website: www.energy-plus.org.
The Energy+ procurement concept builds upon the European energy labelling scheme for domestic white goods. It works to increase the market share of existing high efficiency products and to assist manufacturers to prepare for label revision (co-operative procurement) as well as to stimulate the continued improvement of the most efficient products (technology procurement).
As the energy labelling scheme enters a period of review and transition, the Energy+ concept is particularly valid in:
Given the success of Energy+, the new project, Energy+ 2, (or 2E+) will:
The expected results of the 2E+ project are:
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