IEA Publications on 'Emergency Preparedness'

Press Release
Table of Contents
Summary

Type: Studies
Subject: About the IEA ; Emergency Preparedness ; Oil ; Energy Security

FREE DOWNLOAD: Oil Supply Security

When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf of Mexico in 2005, the region’s oil production and refining infrastructure was devastated and world energy markets were disrupted. The International Energy Agency decided in a matter of days to bring 60 million barrels of additional oil to the market. The emergency response system worked – the collective action helped to stabilise global markets.
Since its founding in 1974, oil supply security has been a core mission of the IEA and the Agency has improved its mechanisms to respond to short-term oil supply disruptions. Nevertheless, numerous factors will continue to test the delicate balance of supply and demand. Oil demand growth will continue to accelerate in Asia; oil will be increasingly produced by a shrinking number of countries; and capacities in the supply chain will need to expand. These are just a few of the challenges facing an already tight market. What are the emergency response systems of IEA countries? How are their emergency structures organised? How prepared is the IEA to deal with an oil supply disruption?

Oil Supply Security: Emergency Response of IEA Countries addresses these questions. It presents another cycle of rigorous reviews of the emergency response mechanisms of IEA member countries. The goal of these reviews is to ensure that the IEA stays ready to respond effectively to oil supply disruptions. This publication also includes overviews of how China, India and countries of Southeast Asia are progressing with domestic policies to improve oil supply security, based on emergency stocks.

Press Release
Table of Contents
Summary

Type: Studies
Subject: Climate Change ; Emergency Preparedness ; Energy Efficiency

FREE DOWNLOAD: Mind the Gap

Energy efficiency presents a unique opportunity to address three energy-related challenges in IEA member countries: energy security, climate change, and economic development.

Yet an energy-efficiency gap exists between actual and optimal energy use. That is, significant cost-effective energy efficiency potential is wasted because market barriers prevent countries from achieving optimal levels. Market barriers take many forms, from inadequate access to capital, isolation from price signals, information asymmetry, and split-incentives. Though many studies have reported the existence of such market barriers, none so far have attempted to quantify the magnitude of their effect on energy use and efficiency.

Mind the Gap is an unprecedented attempt to quantify the size of one of the most pervasive barriers to energy efficiency – principal-agent problems, or in common parlance, variations on the ‘landlord-tenant’ problem. In doing so, the book provides energy analysts and economists with unique insights into the amount of energy affected by principal-agent problems. Using an innovative methodology applied to eight case studies (covering commercial and residential sectors, and end-use appliances) from five different IEA countries, the analysis identifies over 3,800 PJ/year of affected energy use – that is, around 85% of the annual energy use of a country the size of Spain.

The book builds on these findings to suggest a range of possible policy solutions that can reduce the impact of principal-agent problems and help policy makers mind the energy efficiency gap.