The rebound effect for space heating Empirical evidence from Austria

The major focus of this paper is to investigate the magnitude of the `rebound effect’ for space heating in Austria. Different approaches are applied and compared. The most important result of this investigation is that despite the fact that all approaches applied have their weaknesses and some results were not highly significant the final outcomes of the different approaches show quite good coincidence. They provide evidence of a rebound effect between 20 and 30%. The most important conclusions for energy policy makers are: (i) standards with respect to building codes are very important tools to increase the thermal quality of new buildings; (ii) due to prevailing low energy prices a triggering tool, which may be rebates or loans, has to be implemented to increase the efficiency of the building stock.