Grantham Seminar - Promoting energy efficiency in the housing sector: Economic analysis of Spain's experience
The Grantham Research Institute invites you to attend our upcoming Seminar featuring Ibon Galarraga, Deputy Director and Research Professor at the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3). Ibon will be discussing two of his forthcoming papers, further details of which can be seen below.
“The use of ‘Bonus-Malus’ schemes for promoting energy-efficient household appliances: a case study for Spain”
Co-authored along with Luis M. Abadie.
Abstract: Subsidies to promote the purchase of energy-efficient household appliances have been extensively used in many countries. This paper deals with the case of the Spanish rebate scheme, and proposes the use of both subsidies and taxes as a more effective way of promoting efficient appliances. The authors propose a sophisticated methodology for designing optimal combinations of taxes and subsides depending on different policy goals such as budget neutrality, increasing the proportion of efficient appliances, etc.
“The price of energy efficiency in the Spanish housing market”
Co-authored along with Amaia de Ayala and Joseph Spadaro.
Abstract: The housing sector has a large potential for energy conservation and reducing the CO2 footprint through energy efficiency (EE) measures, such as the Energy Performance Certification (EPC). In Spain, this is a recently implemented regulation, and, therefore, unlike other European housing markets, the Spanish one lacks market data on EE labels and their effectiveness. In order to overcome this gap, a revealed preferences survey has served to gather information on energy characteristics of Spanish homes in order to determine EE labels and provide a picture of the status of EE in the Spanish housing market. Our hedonic-pricing model estimation shows that dwellings labelled A, B or C are valued at prices 9.4% higher, ceteris paribus, than those with similar characteristics but lower EE labels.
Ibon Galarraga
Ibon Galarraga is a Deputy Director and Research Professor at the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3). Ibon’s primary interests are energy economics, but also adaptation economics and climate policy. Ibon holds Ph.D. in Economics (Environmental Economics) from the University of Bath (UK), M.A. Economics at the University of Essex (UK) and B.A. Economics (speciality of International Economics and Development) at the University of Basque Country. During July 2005 and May 2009, he was the Deputy Minister for the Environment of the Basque Government, Vicepresident of IHOBE and member of the board of the Ente Vasco de la Energía (EVE). While in this position he was in charge of the preparation of the Environmental Framework Programme 2007-2010, the Basque Plan to combat Climate Change 2008-2012 or the Contaminated Soil Plan 2007-2012 among others. Regarding the International sphere, he was the Deputy Co-Chair of the Network of Regional Governments on Sustainable Development (nrg4sd) from 2005-2008 and has actively participated in the CoP 11-16. He has worked as an environmental consultant for many years for both public and private clients such as the World Bank, the Department for International Development of the British Government or the Basque Government. He was co-founder of a consultancy company. Ibon taught microeconomics and macroeconomics at the University of Bath and Economic Policy at the University of Deusto.