The residential sector holds significant potential for improvements in energy efficiency in Ireland. Retrofit activity, however, can be difficult to instigate despite the presence of government incentives and cost-effective investment opportunities. The failure of individuals and organisations to invest in cost-effective energy efficiency measures is often referred to as ‘the energy efficiency gap’. Here, two separate, but not mutually exclusive, potential contributing factors for this phenomenon are discussed in detail: behavioural anomalies and modelling miscalculations. The relevance of these factors in the context of the Irish residential sector is introduced, and this is followed by a review of intervention literature seeking to increase energy efficiency programme adoption rates by addressing behavioural failures. An examination of domestic and international evidence shows a consistent overestimation by ex-ante models of energy-saving benefits. The paper concludes that addressing behavioural and informational factors can have a positive influence on energy efficiency adoption, but this needs to be complemented with additional policy measures to sufficiently rectify current low rates of uptake in the Irish residential sector. Simultaneously, further action will be needed to better calibrate engineering models using data gathered from ex-post field experiments.

中文翻译：

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解决爱尔兰住宅部门的能效差距

住宅部门在提高爱尔兰的能源效率方面具有巨大潜力。然而，尽管存在政府激励措施和具有成本效益的投资机会，但很难进行改造活动。个人和组织未能投资于具有成本效益的能源效率措施通常被称为“能源效率差距”。在此，详细讨论了两个单独的但互不排斥的潜在因素，从而导致了这种现象：行为异常和建模错误。介绍了这些因素在爱尔兰住宅部门中的相关性，随后对干预文献进行了综述，这些文献试图通过解决行为失灵来提高能源效率计划的采用率。对国内和国际证据的研究表明，事前节能效益模型始终一致地高估了收益。本文的结论是，解决行为和信息因素可以对采用能效产生积极影响，但是这需要补充其他政策措施，以充分纠正爱尔兰居民部门目前的低吸纳率。同时，将需要采取进一步行动，以使用从事后现场实验收集的数据更好地校准工程模型。但这需要辅之以其他政策措施，以充分纠正爱尔兰住宅部门目前的低吸纳率。同时，将需要采取进一步行动，以使用从事后现场实验收集的数据更好地校准工程模型。但这需要辅之以其他政策措施，以充分纠正爱尔兰住宅部门目前的低吸纳率。同时，将需要采取进一步行动，以使用从事后现场实验收集的数据更好地校准工程模型。