Energy efficiency in buildings in the Baltic states and the Nordic countries

ENPaper [I] estimates the impact of the energy performance requirements in building codes on energy efficiency in Swedish multi-apartment buildings. The results, relying on specific energy use data from energy performance certificates (EPCs), indicate that the implementation of performance-based regulation results in a 13.5 % increase in energy efficiency above a general trend of 1.69 % per year for buildings with district heating and a 10.1 % increase for those with electric heating above a trend of 0.40 % per year. The tightened building codes do not show strong effects on further increasing energy efficiency, however. The effect of building codes is modest for buildings with better energy performance, but more substantial for buildings where the actual energy use exceeds the required levels. Furthermore, a structural break analysis indicates a significantly greater increase in efficiency in the period of performancebased regulation than before. In addition to the regulation effects, the results indicate empirical evidence of the energy efficiency gap; the estimated energy use from engineering models is substantially lower than measured energy use for comparable construction. Paper [II] estimates the effects of retrofit programmes of old Soviet-era multiapartment buildings in Lithuania on realized dynamic energy savings by analyzing monthly energy bills. The study employs a quasi-experimental state-of-the-art research design to assess the causal effect of retrofits on energy savings. The results suggest that retrofits are associated with a 50 % to 59 % reduction in average space heating consumption across different post-retrofit periods. Moreover, retrofits also have a short-lived effect on electricity savings of 3 % to 3.6 %. However, given the average heating prices of the study sample, the cost-benefit calculations indicate that energy savings were not sufficiently large to cover the initial investment costs.Paper [III] assesses the energy performance gap - the discrepancy between realized energy savings and the predictions made by engineers. The results show that, on average, the predicted savings are fully realized for a retrofit program of multiapartment buildings in Lithuania. The paper also explores the determinants expected to explain differences in the energy performance gap across the retrofitted buildings. The results suggest that multi-apartment buildings managed by outsourced specialized housing management companies tend to realize higher energy savings after retrofits than buildings managed by communities of apartment owners. Furthermore, compared with retrofitted buildings that achieve the minimum required energy class of C, the performance gap tends to be larger for those buildings that target a higher energy class of A or B. Paper [IV] explores the marginal effects of energy price inflation on various inflation expectations in Sweden. The time-invariant marginal effects are reasonably small. However, the flexible machine learning method of kernel-based regularized least squares (KRLS) estimations indicate significant time-varying patterns in the marginal effects. The marginal effects are highly volatile during the period of recent high energy price inflation. Nevertheless, the volatility tends to be lower, and the marginal effects reduce to around 0 at the end of the sampling period. Among all potential economic factors, energy price inflation can systematically explain the variations in marginal effects. Keywords: energy efficiency, building regulation, multi-apartment buildings, retrofit, energy performance gap, housing management, energy price inflation, inflation expectations.