Essays on the Economics of Energy Efficiency: Evidence from residential dwellings and commercial data centres

Abstract

Global economic growth since the Industrial Revolution has been facilitated, in large part, by the increased use of natural resources as energy in the production process. This has revolutionised how society functions. Historical energy use has accelerated climate change, which has dire implications for future economies, environments and ecosystems. Governments have attempted to enact policies that attempt to avoid this crisis, by seeking to lower energy use, increase renewable energy generation and by improving energy efficiency.

Research has noted significant variation in the effectiveness of energy efficiency policies. It has noted several market-based and behavioural factors that help to explain the energy use of consumers and firms. The central concept of many energy efficiency policies is to reach the socially optimal solution that considers the externality associated with energy use.

This thesis studies the effectiveness of energy efficiency policies in the residential sector and the benefits of energy efficiency for data centres. The former is important due to the ambitious plans to decarbonise the residential sector. The latter topic is relevant due to the rapid and under-researched evolution of new, large scale industry that has the potential to compromise national efforts towards combating climate change.