EE priorities for the 12th Five-Year Plan: To accomplish the targets of reduction in energy intensity and carbon intensity for the 12th FYP, the GoC continues to use a combination of instruments with more inclination towards the use of market-based mechanisms, including: (a) regulatory and administrative measures by allocating quantitative energy saving targets to each province and 17,000 priority [...] The importance of energy saving measurement and verification (M&V): To implement all these policy instruments, the establishment of a market-based, standardized, and internationally recognized measurement and verification (M&V) system for energy savings is of fundamental importance, for the following reasons: (a) such an M&V system is vital for the government’s reward fund program, as the financia [...] The M&V system will be essential to accurately measure the results of the on-going efforts; and (d) M&V is a pre-requisite for the pilot Energy Saving Certificates Trading and carbon cap and trade schemes. [...] Since the government has allocated mandatory energy saving targets to the 17,000 priority enterprises and the energy data collection and reporting systems have been established during the 11th FYP period, the environment is relatively mature for Energy Saving Certificates Trading. [...] As a result, the lack of a standardized methodology and detailed operational guidelines to calculate energy savings have led to large discrepancy in measurement of project results in energy savings by the enterprises, the government, and even different third-party verification agencies, thus undermining the efficacy of the EE program.