At the start of the new year, the German government and 21 business associations and organizations as well as other cooperation partners are continuing the network initiative as the Energy Efficiency and Climate Protection Networks Initiative.
As the successor to the successful Energy Efficiency Networks Initiative, it is setting a new focus: in addition to the previous focus on the efficient use of energy in industry, trade, commerce and the skilled trades, the content spectrum of the networks is being expanded to include the topics of climate protection, the energy transition and sustainability.
In September 2020, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and the Federal Ministry for the Environment, together with representatives from industry, agreed to further expand the initiative. The aim is to establish up to 350 new networks by the end of 2025. In this way, nine to eleven terawatt hours of final energy and five to six million tons of greenhouse gas emissions can be saved.
The Energy Efficiency Networks initiative was launched in December 2014 and has since proven to be one of the most successful instruments of the National Action Plan on Energy Efficiency (NAPE). To date, 285 networks have been established as part of the initiative, in which around 2,400 companies or company locations were or are active. Thanks to the numerous energy efficiency measures implemented by the participating companies, the network initiative's original target of saving five million tonsof CO2 is likely to be achieved with significantly fewer networks than originally assumed. The accompanying monitoring of the initiative shows that the networks are achieving their own targets by an average of 111%. Their average savings amount to 40,000 megawatt hours of primary energy and 11,700 tonsof CO2 per year and network. All information about the initiative and for a successful network launch is also available by telephone: 030 667 777 66.
