As climate talks stall, it’s clear the UN process is no longer the major driving force of the climate transition, write Soila Apparicio, Megan Darby and Karl Mathiesen of Climate Home News. While diplomates are negotiating the complex rules of the Paris deal, businesses, researchers, governments and citizens are coming up with new ways to move the climate to a safer place. Courtesy: Climate Home News … [Read more...]
Fancy having your own power plant? “Fuel cell micro-cogeneration is market-ready”
More than 1,000 fuel cell micro-cogeneration units have been installed in homes and business in ten countries over the last several years by the ene.field project. Its successor, the PACE project, aims at bringing costs further down, although manufacturers and users say the technology is market-ready. … [Read more...]
How MEPs misuse energy poverty to water down efficiency legislation
On 28 November, the Industry committee of the European Parliament will deliver a crucial vote on the EU 2030 energy efficiency target. According to ClĂ©mence Hutin, who works for the Climate Justice and Energy Programme of Friends of the Earth Europe, there is cross-party support for an ambitious 40% target, but she warns that two key rapporteurs on the file are no friends of energy efficiency. Both, she says, have incorrectly argued that higher … [Read more...]
Value-added electricity services: who should supply them and how?
Berkeley Lab has released a new report that discusses who should supply the new value-added services that are emerging in the electricity market - and what policies and regulations are needed to nurture this new market. The report applies to the U.S., but includes lots of lessons for Europe as well.  … [Read more...]
The Clean Growth Strategy puts faith in energy efficiency – here’s how to do it
The UK government’s new Clean Growth Strategy gives quite a lot of priority to energy efficiency. That’s good news, write Jan Rosenow and Richard Cowart of the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP). What’s needed next is to develop the policies that actually deliver the goods. This can be done by following the principle of Efficiency First. … [Read more...]
How Paris and Vienna are struggling to become the clean cities of the future
The success of the clean energy transition will depend to a large extent on the actions of local and regional authorities. Sustainability officers from Paris, Sabine Romon, and Vienna, Bernd Vogl, explain what clean energy goals they have set themselves and how they are planning to achieve them. “The thing to start with is the infrastructure”, says Vogl. “The first task is to work on our public buildings”, says Romon, who warns that Paris' ban on … [Read more...]
European Council set to wipe out energy efficiency progress, leading to a decade of higher costs
Shockingly, the European Council is on the point of making decisions that will obliterate progress in energy efficiency in the EU, write Jan Rosenow and Richard Cowart of the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP). This will raise energy bills for consumers and companies, lead to worse health, comfort, air quality, and public housing, reduce job opportunities, and make it harder and more expensive to reach EU climate targets. All for the sake of … [Read more...]
Energy and blockchain: here are the most promising applications
Blockchain applications are rapidly spreading across the energy sector, writes David Groarke, Managing Director of Indigo Advisory Group. Some of those applications may be disruptive for utilities. Europe is the most active region globally. Groarke discusses some of the key takeaways from a recent blockchain conference in Vienna. … [Read more...]
Smart meter data hubs: Europe vs. Germany
The European discussion about data management in the energy sector is driven by the smart meter roll-out and the need to reduce market entry barriers via data access, writes Marius Buchmann, Post-Doc at Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany. Most European countries are discussing or have introduced Retail Hubs to facilitate data collection and distribution. Germany already has mechanisms in place to do this and is instead discussing the … [Read more...]
The surprising story of the decline of electricity use in American households
Despite continued economic growth, American households use less electricity than they did five years ago, writes Lucas Davis of the Energy Institute at Haas School of Business. The reason may surprise you, notes Davis: it’s energy-efficient lighting. According to Davis it is not clear yet whether household electricity use has peaked or will rise again in future. Courtesy Energy at Haas. … [Read more...]
Energy efficiency needs “historic level of public-private cooperation”
From a banking perspective, energy efficiency is difficult to classify in terms of business opportunities because its benefits are so widely dispersed,  writes Stephen Hibbert, global head of Energy & Carbon Efficiency at ING Wholesale Banking. For this reason, to close the “investment gap” in energy efficiency, “a historic level of public-private cooperation” is needed, according to Hibbert. He sees many signs that this is happening. … [Read more...]
Don’t throw out the energy efficiency baby with the Brexit bathwater
Will Brexit put energy efficiency progress in the UK at risk, ask Jan Rosenow, Pedro Guertler and Richard Cowart of RAP (Regulatory Assistance Project)? In electric appliances and heating systems – probably not. The biggest risk is in the building sector.UK policymakers will need to put efficiency first if they want to reach carbon targets and keep costs down. … [Read more...]
Energy efficiency rate has to double to meet climate targets
The annual improvement in energy efficiency has slowed down from 1.6% in the period 2000-2008 to 1.3% in 2009-2015, according to a comprehensive new report published by the World Energy Council and the French public agency ADEME. To meet the Paris climate targets, the rate should double to 2.5% per year to 2030, says  François Moisan, Scientific Director of ADEME. According to Moisan, price signals are key to achieving this goal, although … [Read more...]
How Europe can deliver on energy efficiency
The European Commission’s recently released Clean Energy Package, has a 2030 target of 30% energy savings. An important policy instrument to deliver these are Energy Efficiency Obligation (EEO) schemes. According to new research from the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP), not only are EEOs a highly cost-effective way to deliver energy efficiency, over the long term they can deliver consumer savings worth more than 4 times the costs of meeting … [Read more...]
How utilities can deal with the threat of community energy
Community energy is the next big threat to utility companies – unless they manage to become part of this emerging energy economy. They still have a window of opportunity, says Craig Cavanaugh of software services company Omnetric Group, who spent six months researching the energy community market in Europe and the US. He sees three main opportunities for utilities: they can become “collaborative partner”, “community energy service provider” or … [Read more...]
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