Overview

The mapping and benchmarking work undertaken by IEA 4E is an inter-country collaborative project designed to help policymakers understand differences in product performance and energy consumption between countries, and the resulting opportunities that may exist to improve the performance of products locally. The work was originally done under a separate Annex of IEA 4E but since May 2014, the work is overseen directly by the 4E executive committee.

Each of the 4E countries participates in the projects, supplying energy/performance related data on products which is then analysed to allow the relative benchmarking of the energy performance of those products over time. The results are reviewed alongside information on government policies and cultural variables in each of the markets. Any lessons learned from the best performing countries are
highlighted to help improve product
performance elsewhere.

Process

The first step in the process is to select a number of products which are appropriate to a benchmarking analysis. The key criteria for selection are:

  • the product is a significant user of electrical energy;
  • there is significant scope to improve the energy efficiency of the product;
  • the technology is relatively consistent and comparable in the different markets; and
  • participating countries have sufficient data to make an analysis useful.

Once a product has been selected, the analysis is then undertaken in three stages:

Product definition: once a product is selected, the exact characteristics of the product are described in the product definition. Details include the energy metrics that will be calculated, the technological, usage and other characteristics that will be considered, and any other policy or cultural information that will be collected and analysed. The product definition for each product is available here.

Mapping report: for each country that submits data for analysis, a document is created that describes the energy performance of the product in that market over time. Where possible analysis of the energy consumption in the installed stock is also presented along with details of the local policies and cultural issues that are relevant to that product. All completed mapping reports can be found here.

Benchmarking report: this is the key output of the analysis for each product and draws together the results from each of the participating countries. Data often has to be normalised to ensure that it is comparable because test methodologies vary between different regions and countries. Once comparable data sets are available the results are consolidated to show how performance varies between the participating countries. Any lessons that can be learned from the data alone, or in conjunction with policy and cultural information, are presented in this benchmarking output. All completed benchmarking reports can be found here.