USAID and Berkeley Lab are working with the Agence Nationale pour la Maîtrise de l’Énergie (ANME) to help the Government of Tunisia (GOT) meeting its climate goals of achieving 30% of primary energy reduction by 2030.
Mitigating the impact of cooling peak demand
Market Assessment
The market for ACs in Tunisia is growing rapidly, having reached approximately 240,000 units sold per year. Berkeley Lab and the Tunisia’s National Agency for Energy Management (ANME) developed a market assessment to identify a baseline efficiency to be established

Energy labels of Small Air Conditioner sold in Tunisia (2009 – 2019)
for ACs in Tunisia.
Our analysis shows that the range of prices is correlated primarily to the size of the model rather than to its efficiency. Therefore, setting higher efficiency standards for cooling products could save significant energy while having little impact on the purchasing prices of ACs.
Cost Benefit Analysis
Berkeley Lab conducted a cost benefits analysis in collaboration with ANME to assess the impacts of the revision of energy efficiency standards for ACs to international best practice.
The study shows that:
- The construction of a 588 MW power plant can be avoided by 2040, equivalent to a medium-size power plant roughly valued at 1 Billion US$.
- 4.0 Mt of CO2 emissions through 2040 can be reduced
- On average, consumers will save 50$ and 80$ over the lifetime of their cooling-only and reversible AC units, respectively, that can be spent on other goods in the economy.
ANME organized a consultation workshop to share the findings of the study which demonstrated the importance of setting more ambitious goals for EE standards in Tunisia to help the government meet their NDC goal to reduce carbon intensity by 45% and primary energy by 30% by 2030 and beyond compared to 2010.