Improving energy efficiency plays a key role in the Federal Government’s energy concept alongside expanding the use of renewables. This is also reflected in the number of direct and indirect energy efficiency targets. Those which relate directly to this area are a 20% reduction in primary energy consumption by 2020 and 50% by 2050, and a 10% and 25% reduction in electricity consumption in the same periods (compared to 2008 levels), coupled with an increase in energy productivity in final energy consumption by an average of 2.1% per annum. In addition, the sectoral targets for buildings and transport can also be interpreted primarily as energy efficiency targets. Despite the progress in achieving the targets recorded in the first monitoring report (BMWi/BMU 2012), the expert commission accompanying the monitoring process believes that “the pace and intensity need to be significantly increased in the future if the energy efficiency improvements aimed at are to be achieved” (Expert Commission 2012, p. Z-5). The current Coalition Agreement between CDU, CSU and SPD also stresses that “more emphasis must be placed on reducing energy consumption through greater energy efficiency as a key element in the energy transition” (Coalition Agreement 2013, p. 51).

At the EU level, the three targets of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, expanding renewable energies and improving energy efficiency relate to the period up to 2020. While the greenhouse gases and renewables targets do not appear to be in jeopardy during the project, it was at uncertain whether the EU would achieve its target of increasing energy efficiency by 20% by 2020 in comparison with a reference development. This target would represent a reduction in primary energy consumption by 368 Mtoe compared with projections. The EU Energy Efficiency Directive of October 2012 (2012/27/EU, EED) put in place a legal framework for energy efficiency with the overall target of improving energy efficiency in primary energy consumption in the EU by 20% by 2020 and further improvements in energy efficiency thereafter. Article 3 of the EED requires every Member State to set an indicative national energy efficiency target for this purpose. In addition, Article 7 requires Member States to at least achieve new savings each year from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2020 of 1.5% of their annual energy sales. To achieve this target, Member States could either set up an energy efficiency obligation scheme as per Article 7(1) or take other strategic measures to bring about energy savings with final customers. With regard to Article 7 of the EED it is also was unclear whether Germany will actually be able to achieve this target with the energy efficiency measures implemented or planned to date.