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On the Quality and Impact of Residential Energy Performance Certificates

Author

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  • Hårsman, Björn

    (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology)

  • Daghbashyan, Zara

    (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology)

  • Chaudhary, Parth

    (Department of Energy Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, India)

Abstract

This paper addresses quality and impact issues concerning Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) by means of a dataset based upon the Swedish EPCs for single-family houses. Assuming that the quality of the certificates plays an important role for their impact, we examine to what extent various characteristics of the firms and experts issuing the certificates are influencing their assessments of energy consumption and energy conservation. Exploiting the information on biased assessments, we also investigate the relationship between the transaction price of a house and its EPC label. Doing so, we distinguish the attributes that can be observed by visiting the house and those that a buyer only can inform herself about through the EPC. Applying regression analyses we find that firm and expert characteristics matter quite a lot implying that the EPC-quality could be improved considerably by increasing the inter-rater reliability. The results also show that the price impact of the energy label is related to information that the buyers can obtain by visiting the house rather than to information uniquely provided by the EPCs. Hence, the EPCs per se are unlikely to stimulate energy conservation through the price mechanism.

Suggested Citation

  • Hårsman, Björn & Daghbashyan, Zara & Chaudhary, Parth, 2016. "On the Quality and Impact of Residential Energy Performance Certificates," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 429, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies.
  • Handle: RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0429
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Shiva Amirkhani & Ali Bahadori-Jahromi & Anastasia Mylona & Paulina Godfrey & Darren Cook & Hooman Tahayori & Hexin Zhang, 2021. "Uncertainties in Non-Domestic Energy Performance Certificate Generating in the UK," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-19, July.
    2. Camboni, Riccardo & Corsini, Alberto & Miniaci, Raffaele & Valbonesi, Paola, 2021. "Mapping fuel poverty risk at the municipal level. A small-scale analysis of Italian Energy Performance Certificate, census and survey data," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    3. Mats Wilhelmsson, 2019. "Energy Performance Certificates and Its Capitalization in Housing Values in Sweden," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-16, November.
    4. Fetzer, Thiemo, 2023. "Regulatory barriers to climate action : Evidence from Conservation Areas in England," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1451, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    5. Khazal, Aras & Sønstebø, Ole Jakob, 2020. "Valuation of energy performance certificates in the rental market – Professionals vs. nonprofessionals," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    6. Riccardo Camboni & Alberto Corsini & Raffaele Miniaci & Paola Valbonesi, 2023. "CO2 emissions reduction from residential buildings: cost estimate and policy design," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0304, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    7. Reusens, Peter & Vastmans, Frank & Damen, Sven, 2023. "A new framework to disentangle the impact of changes in dwelling characteristics on house price indices," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    8. Kotarela, Faidra & Kyritsis, Anastasios & Agathokleous, Rafaela & Papanikolaou, Nick, 2023. "On the exploitation of dynamic simulations for the design of buildings energy systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 271(C).
    9. Mainali, Brijesh & Mahapatra, Krushna & Pardalis, Georgios, 2021. "Strategies for deep renovation market of detached houses," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    10. Felipe Encinas & Carlos Aguirre & Carlos Marmolejo-Duarte, 2018. "Sustainability Attributes in Real Estate Development: Private Perspectives on Advancing Energy Regulation in a Liberalized Market," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-26, January.
    11. Wahlström, Marie H., 2016. "Doing good but not that well? A dilemma for energy conserving homeowners," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 197-205.
    12. Aleksandar S. Anđelković & Miroslav Kljajić & Dušan Macura & Vladimir Munćan & Igor Mujan & Mladen Tomić & Željko Vlaović & Borivoj Stepanov, 2021. "Building Energy Performance Certificate—A Relevant Indicator of Actual Energy Consumption and Savings?," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-19, June.
    13. Li, Y. & Kubicki, S. & Guerriero, A. & Rezgui, Y., 2019. "Review of building energy performance certification schemes towards future improvement," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 1-1.
    14. Jenny von Platten & Claes Sandels & Kajsa Jörgensson & Viktor Karlsson & Mikael Mangold & Kristina Mjörnell, 2020. "Using Machine Learning to Enrich Building Databases—Methods for Tailored Energy Retrofits," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-22, May.
    15. Pasichnyi, Oleksii & Wallin, Jörgen & Levihn, Fabian & Shahrokni, Hossein & Kordas, Olga, 2019. "Energy performance certificates — New opportunities for data-enabled urban energy policy instruments?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 486-499.
    16. Hardy, A. & Glew, D., 2019. "An analysis of errors in the Energy Performance certificate database," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 1168-1178.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Residential energy performance certificates; assessments of energy consumption and conservation; inter-rater reliability; capitalization of energy efficiency; hedonic regression;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • Q41 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Demand and Supply; Prices
    • R31 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Housing Supply and Markets

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