Barriers to the Diffusion of Energy Efficiency in the German Commercial and Services Sectors

In this section, econometric methods are applied to empirically assess the relevance of various factors of influence on energy-efficiency barriers in the German commerce and services sectors (small commercial businesses and private and public service organisations).2 For various barriers, a separate regression equation is estimated econometrically. In this sense, the analyses conducted are similar to DeGroot et al. (2001). The barriers include, for example, lack of information about energyconsumption patterns or energy-efficient measures. Based on the estimation results, the statistical significance of various “explanatory” variables such as energy consumption, size of the company, or differences across sub-sectors can be assessed. Moreover, it is examined to which extent energy audits3 help overcome these barriers, as has often been suggested (Enquête Commission, 1989; Geiger et al., 1999; European Commission, 2006). The estimation results presented in this chapter make it possible to evaluate the effectiveness of energy audits conducted by utilities, engineering firms, or industry sector associations.