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Affordability
Multiple benefits of Energy Efficiency 2025 Energy efficiency provides multiple benefits. This page explores affordability. Why is energy efficiency important for affordability? Energy efficiency measures can reduce energy bills for households, decrease energy poverty, and make access to energy services more affordable. Key facts Energy efficiency measures can reduce average household energy bills in advanced economies by up to one-third. In emerging economies, they can also improve access to energy services. For many products, such as refrigerators, highly efficient models use less than half of the energy of inefficient models. A best-in-class model can save up to…
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Designing Energy Efficiency Policies to Enhance Affordability
Examples from G7 countries Energy affordability has emerged as a critical concern in the context of rising global energy prices and growing inequality in energy access. Lower-income households spend a significantly higher share of their income on energy than wealthier households, leaving them exposed to price shocks and especially vulnerable when energy prices increase. Energy efficiency can play a key role in delivering lower energy bills, reducing emissions, and enhancing resilience. However, ensuring that all households benefit requires targeted, inclusive policy design.This issue was a central focus of an IEA workshop held in January 2025 with G7 country…
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Financing Electricity Access in Africa
Access to electricity is a cornerstone for economic development, poverty reduction and social equity. However, almost 600 million people in Africa lack access to electricity today, with progress falling far behind targets set by both African governments and the international community. Reaching universal electricity access will require a rapid scale-up of investment and financing to USD 15 billion per year, enabling the expansion of generation capacity, grid networks and decentralised solutions while ensuring that progress remains inclusive and sustainable.In a new flagship report, Financing Electricity Access in Africa, the International Energy Agency (IEA) undertakes its authoritative energy analysis…
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The Value of Demand Flexibility
Benefits beyond balancing This policy brief, developed under the International Energy Agency’s Digital Demand-Driven Electricity Networks (3DEN) Initiative, examines the value of demand flexibility as a core component of modern electricity systems, with a strong emphasis on its role in improving energy efficiency. As electricity demand grows and power systems become more electrified, decentralised and renewable-rich, managing when and how electricity is used is increasingly as important as expanding supply.The brief sets out a clear framework for understanding demand flexibility and highlights its contribution to an efficiency-first approach to power system planning and operation. By…
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IEA Guide to Reporting Energy Technology RD&D Budgets
This manual, developed by the International Energy Agency (IEA), provides comprehensive guidance for national experts responsible for reporting energy technology research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) budgets. It outlines the methodology and classification system used to collect and structure RD&D data across IEA member countries, ensuring consistency and comparability. The manual is divided into two main sections: fundamentals of RD&D budget reporting and a detailed classification of energy technologies. It defines RD&D in alignment with the OECD Frascati Manual and clarifies the scope of public and private sector reporting. It also provides instructions for completing the IEA…
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Korea 2025
Energy Policy Review Government action plays a pivotal role in ensuring secure and sustainable energy transitions. Energy policy is critical not just for the energy sector but also for meeting environmental, economic and social goals. Governments need to respond to their country’s specific needs, adapt to regional contexts and help address global challenges. In this context, the International Energy Agency (IEA) conducts Energy Policy Reviews to support governments in developing more impactful energy and climate policies.This Energy Policy Review was prepared in partnership between the Government of Korea and the IEA. It draws on the IEA’s extensive…
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China’s Official Energy Finance in Emerging and Developing Economies
Evolving institutions, instruments and implications for clean energy transitions Global energy investment exceeded USD 3.3 trillion in 2025, but capital flows remain uneven. Emerging market and developing economies (EMDE) outside China attracted just 27% of total energy investment and 18% of clean energy spending, despite accounting for nearly two-thirds of the global population and the bulk of future demand. Addressing this imbalance requires mobilising more capital from diverse sources into EMDE energy systems.China continues to play a central role in global energy investment flows because of its large domestic investments and its large external capital spending on energy. Since…
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Scaling Up Transition Finance
Scaling Up
Transition
Finance Actions by emissions-intensive sectors, companies and countries are crucial to placing the world on a sustainable pathway. Yet investments that could deliver meaningful reductions in their environmental footprint often do not receive sufficient financial support. Currently, finance is drawn heavily to certain “green” assets and activities. While vital, these investments alone cannot deliver all the changes needed to cut global emissions, especially in areas where clean technologies are not yet commercially available or cost-competitive. This is where transition finance comes in: it can help emissions-intensive countries, companies and sectors shift over time towards…
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Multiple Benefits of Energy Efficiency
As energy efficiency continues to gain attention as a key resource for economic and social development across all economies, understanding its real value is increasingly important. The multiple benefits approach seeks to expand the perspective of energy efficiency beyond the traditional measure of energy savings by identifying and measuring its impacts in full bloom.
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Carbon-Free Electricity in G20 Countries
Status and the way forward In 2024, the Republic of Korea proposed the Carbon-Free Energy (CFE) Initiative to promote the use of technology-neutral, carbon-free energy to decarbonise the energy sector.In line with this initiative, Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) commissioned this report to analyse the status and prospects of carbon-free energy in the electricity sector in G20 countries, and to provide policy recommendations to advance its progress.The International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Korea Energy Economics Institute (KEEi) jointly produced this report.
