Tackling covid-19 crisis through energy efficiency investments: Decision support tools for economic recovery

The covid-19 pandemic has unleashed unprecedented shocks across all aspects of society. Especially, the energy sector is in no exception, with concerns being raised about how governments and private sector will recover from the economic recession but continue working towards clean energy transition. Firm commitments and targeted energy efficiency (EE) investments are required. This study's aim is twofold; firstly, a review on the energy sector crisis with the critical role of EE investments and the investigation of available Decision Support (DS) tools to boost such recovery. The methodology followed by a review on strategically selected countries to capture their energy recovery needs and strategies. Results showed that EE investments will assist in countering pandemic recession, therefore, innovative DS tools and standardisation methods are required. However, hardly any tool exists identifying sustainable investments with strong potential to meet their commitments. The Triple-A Horizon 2020 standardised tools are considered to play critical role enabling EE projects to get financed towards assessing the EE investments' risks.