The European Court of Auditors (ECA) has published the new report Energy efficiency in buildings: more emphasis on cost-effectiveness needed which assesses whether EU co-financed energy efficiency investments in buildings contributed cost-effectively to the EU achieving its 2020 energy savings target. The conclusion reached by the auditors is that the operational programmes and the selection of projects did not follow a cost-effectiveness logic.
In the paper, the auditors criticise national authorities for not targeting EU funds to projects that are most likely to save energy. When setting up EU-funded programmes, they do not always assess initial energy consumption, energy saving potential and investment needs.
Moreover, the auditors conclude, since the return on investment is not measured, it is not possible to know how much energy will have been saved by investing 6.6 billion euros of public expenditure in residential buildings.
