The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy’s (BMWi) Energy Efficiency Fund finances measures to boost energy efficiency , including the exploitation of industrial waste heat . Its final report , published at the end of March, presents the findings of an evaluation carried out by the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI , Prognos , ifeu , and the German Foundation for Environmental Energy Law between 2011 and 2017. According to the report, the funding recipients saved approximately €235 million in energy costs in 2017 alone.

The measures evaluated also helped cut greenhouse gases by 16 million tons between 2011 and 2017. Since the majority of funding programs under the National Action Plan on Energy Efficiency (NAPE) were launched in 2015 and 2016 and some have therefore only just got underway, even better results are expected in the future. In 2017 alone, energy efficiency measures resulted in a reduction in CO2 emissions of approx. 1.2 million tons.