Achievement of Energy Efficiency Targets

Lithuania, in order to increase competitiveness, to comply with the EU requirements as well as to contribute to the common EU target to reduce energy consumption by 20 percent by 2020, has predicted to save 11.67 terawatt hours (further – TWh) final energy within 2014-2020 period. That meets the yearly electric energy consumption in the country.

The Government has envisaged the policy measures to increase the energy efficiency, however at a mid-term of the implementation period 3.9 TWh i.e. 33.7 percent were saved. Based on auditors’ calculations, if the Government does not take any additional actions, the goal will not be achieved. In such case, Lithuania is at risk of sanctions– one of them – one-time penalty of 0.6 million Eur. This is particular important in view of the fact that such saving requirements will only increase in the future, states the National Audit Office after performing an audit “Achievement of the energy efficiency target“.

“Increasing the energy efficiency is one of the most important EU and Lithuanian national goals, which is used to maintain the same level of living conditions, produce goods and provide services by using less energy. Energy use per unit of GDP in Lithuania according to Eurostat, is 1.88 times greater than the EU average “, – says the Director of Economic Audit Department Julius Lukošius.

During the audit, it was determined that the implementation of energy saving measures is late primarily because of the delay in the creation of the necessary legal environment which took two years, and that those measures are not properly coordinated even today. Four out of seven energy efficiency measures were not started until the end of 2016. Three new measures that are supposed to 48 percent of savings were approved and started to implement only when less than half of the time period was left (at the end of 2017). It is worth noting that when auditing procedures have begun, a clear push for policy implementations was noticed, however, the necessary spurt is still missing, thus, the risk of not achieving the target remains.

Auditors notice that when implementing the Public building renovation programme, not a single building was renovated in 2014–2017. As the programme is late it cannot be ensured that at least 3 percent of these buildings will be renovated each year. An attention should be drawn to the fact that at the moment the Working group on Environmental Auditing (EUROSAI WGEA) is also performing an international audit – is evaluating whether the countries are ready to achieve and stick to the energy efficiency requirements of public buildings, established in the Energy Efficiency and Energy Performance of Buildings directives. The audit is expected to be completed and report the findings before October this year.

According to the National Audit Office, when the measure Apartment blocks renovation programme, that has to generate 2,67 TWh energy savings (or almost 23 percent of all savings) was implemented as of 31 December 2016, 2.1 TWh (or almost 18 percent of all savings) was already saved, i.e. the most of all energy saving measures. For its implementation in 2014–2017 513 million Eur was already invested. In the Apartment blocks renovation programme funds 87.8 million Eur was left by 31 December 2017, thus, it is likely that there will not be enough funding when implementing the goal laid out in the Government’s programme to renovate 500 apartment blocks every year. Therefore, when the risk is managed, it is necessary to properly predict the size of the funding needed.

In order to achieve the targets in the Energy Efficiency Directive in time, the National Audit Office draws attention to the fact that the on-going monitoring of the implementation of the energy efficiency increase measures is necessary to ensure effective operation of the existing and additional measures. Therefore, cooperation between all interested parties, effective oversight system, and parliamentary control should be in place.