Measures to improve energy efficiency are an integral component of a bundle of measures concerning energy policy to achieve the announced goals of climate protection. The meager advances achieved here despite the great technological-economic potential explains why it can be called a sleeping giant. The planned studies start here and cover estimates of the potential in selected regions in the end-user sectors. In addition to reporting the status of technological-economic analyses, a focus should be on the behavior of actors in the context of using efficient technology in order to identify the market potential of energy efficiency.

There are different options and ways of being able to reach the announced climate protection goals. In this context of a strategy for reducing greenhouse gases, it is planned to analyze the most effective and economic measures, taking into account processes of implementation (e.g., the lock-in effect), and to identify the possibilities for improving the market potential. The assessment of the sustainability of a strategy for reducing greenhouse gases employs, as a rule, indicators. It is planned to develop suitable indicators for characterizing the energy efficiency of measures. These indicators will in turn be employed in subtopic “Energy System Perspective: Assessment and Scenarios”, whose goal is to conduct a model-based and comprehensive assessment of the sustainability of energy scenarios.