Energy audits help to increase energy efficiency in industry and have proven effective in many studies. Additional implementation support programmes providing financial incentives have been developed to not only support audits but also to overcome financial barriers to energy efficiency investments. Because the different types of programmes coexist, we argue that a precise analysis of their effects must explicitly model them together, demonstrating non-trivial direct and indirect effects of both audits and financial programmes on the adoption of energy efficiency measures. We corroborate the presence of these direct and indirect effects with data on German firms, all of which have participated in an energy audit programme and some of which have additionally received financial implementation support. Audits not only affect the adoption of energy efficiency measures directly, they also increase the likelihood of receiving financial implementation support, which in turn increases the adoption rate. Furthermore, our findings highlight that consultancy during implementation is an important factor for adoption. Accordingly, additional supporting policies should be considered in future energy audits, for example to ensure assistance during implementation.

能源审计有助于提高工业能源效率，并在许多研究中证明是有效的。已经制定了提供财务激励的其他实施支持计划，不仅可以支持审计，还可以克服能效投资的财务障碍。由于不同类型的计划共存，我们认为对其影响的精确分析必须明确地将它们一起建模，证明审计和财务计划对采用能效措施的重要直接和间接影响。我们用德国公司的数据证实了这些直接和间接影响的存在，所有这些公司都参与了能源审计计划，其中一些还获得了财务实施支持。审计不仅直接影响能效措施的采用，还增加了获得财务实施支持的可能性，从而提高了采用率。此外，我们的研究结果强调，实施期间的咨询是采用的重要因素。因此，在未来的能源审计中应考虑额外的支持政策，例如确保在实施过程中提供帮助。