Getting to the top floor: Towards policy options to address the energy saving potentials of lifts

Lifts are nowadays considered an essential part of nearly all larger new buildings. They increase comfort and make buildings accessible to handicapped and elderly people. Due to their longevity, lifts determine the energy demand of buildings in the long run. While a considerable amount of lifts has been installed in the last decades, the bulk of them is considerably older. Some installations, though partially upgraded, still even date back to before the mid of last century. The aim of this paper is to further investigate how energy efficiency of lifts is currently addressed by European policy-making and to discuss how policy options on lifts might contribute to achieving energy savings for these installations. To underpin the analysis, a quantitative stock model for lifts is elaborated for this paper. Based on this model, different policy scenarios are discussed to analyse their potential impact on the energy consumption of lifts. The stock model indicates that there are currently approximately 4.6 million lifts in operation in the EU-28 consuming in total about 18.9 TWh of electricity each year. Due to gradual replacements of inefficient older lifts and technological progress, this consumption is expected to decline to 10.4 TWh until 2050. Policy options for new lifts could help to lead to a further reduction in electricity demand of about 2.3 TWh. These options could be based on the inclusion of lifts in the list of technical equipment in the next revision of the EPBD, by further investigating on implementing measures within the Ecodesign process and by considering a European energy label for lifts.