Understanding energy efficiency barriers in Ukraine: Insights from a survey of commercial and industrial firms

• Despite attractiveness, large scale deployment of energy efficiency is lacking.
• Several barriers are responsible for slow implementation of energy efficiency.
• Understanding the barriers from the field is crucial to design effective policies.
• A survey of commercial and industrial firms reveals the key barriers.
• Financial barriers are the main hurdles to adopt energy efficient technologies.

Improvement of energy efficiency is an important element of energy policy for a sustainable supply of energy in Ukraine. However, the country is facing several challenges to the large-scale deployment of energy efficient technologies. We conducted a two-stage quota sample survey of 509 commercial and industrial firms of all regions of Ukraine to understand the barriers to energy efficiency improvements. Our study finds that more than two-thirds of the commercial and industrial firms in the country view improvement of energy efficiency very important to their business. However, due to several barriers they are unable to realize the improvements of energy efficiency. Among the 19 potential barriers investigated in the study, the survey results show that high upfront investment requirement, lack of government policies to support energy efficiency improvements, higher cost of capital, and lack of information and awareness are the most critical barriers to the improvement of energy efficiency in the industrial and commercial sectors in Ukraine.