The EE1st principle suggests that energy efficiency improvements and other demand-side resources need to be selected whenever they are more cost-effective than equivalent power plants, transmission networks, storage systems, and other supply-side infrastructures.
The Regulation (EU) 2018/1999 on the Governance of the Energy Union and Climate Action established EE1st primarily as an overarching principle for the National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs). This ground was complemented in September 2021 by the Commission Recommendation (EU) 2021/1749 with general guidelines to implement EE1st in main sectors.
Building on the previous Horizon 2020 Enefirst project, the aim of the follow up LIFE Enefirst Plus is to provide key stakeholders in all Member States with technical support to implement EE1st. The general approach is to complement existing resources to plug EE1st in major decision-making processes. This will be tested with pilot cases in four countries (Croatia, Italy, Greece and Poland).
The first report of ENEFIRST Plus provides an overview of recent EU policy developments relevant to EE1st, and then analyses the background in the four pilot countries for the first pilot cases.