Existing, latest technology could be delivering the world’s current air conditioning needs with just a third of the energy use, say Sneha Sachar at the AEEE (India) and Iain Campbell at RMI. The main barrier is the up-front costs. And that’s for everything from improving the thermal efficiency of buildings to accelerating the deployment of the most efficient cutting edge ACs (at present, legal minimums lag behind the best ACs, and the best ACs … [Read more...]
UK heating plan still means 120 gas boilers installed for every low-carbon system
Though the UK is a leader in grid electrification it is a poor performer when it comes to the electrification of heating. In May the UK government proposed a clean heat policy to support the switch away from gas heating for 12,500 homes a year for two years. Jan Rosenow and Samuel Thomas at RAP say that looks like business as usual: for every one new low-carbon heating system, more than 120 gas boilers will be installed as normal. In 2019, 1.7m … [Read more...]
Free online Buildings Electrification training for workers on lockdown
More than 26 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits during the lockdown. Among their number will be workers who, while sitting at home, could be trained up with useful skills they can use when the lockdowns end. You just need to identify where the big skills gaps in the economy are. Stephen Mushegan and Claire McKenna at RMI look at buildings refits and electrification, where like in most countries huge emissions reduction targets … [Read more...]
No Energiewende without Wärmewende: making Germany’s Heating emissions climate neutral (…nearly)
In Germany, space and water heating in buildings accounts for almost a third of total final energy consumption. Because over 90% of its 22m buildings are fuelled by oil and gas, that makes the sector emissions very intensive. The government’s ambition is to have a "nearly climate neutral building stock" by 2050. But although those emissions have fallen by 44% since 1990, progress has largely stagnated since 2011. Freja Eriksen at Clean Energy … [Read more...]
HVAC: New window “film” cuts cooling load by 30%. No need for re-fits
Buildings represent one third of energy usage in the U.S., and that will be typical of similar economies around the world. The cost of re-fitting buildings to conserve energy is very high and can take decades. Specifically, 30% of the energy used to heat and cool buildings is down to the heat that either escapes or enters through windows. What if there was a way to control that heat flow without re-designing or replacing the windows? MIT’s Mary … [Read more...]
Predicting global air conditioning demand, by nation
Predicting future energy demand is difficult, more so when you must account for the choices made by individual households spread all across the globe. Air conditioning is a case in point. To tackle this, Lucas Davis led a team at the Haas School of Business to quantify each nation’s need for air conditioning, and rank them (219 countries and 1,692 cities). To get a nation’s “total CDD exposure” they, in essence, worked out their average cooling … [Read more...]
Developing world urbanisation: a great opportunity for smartgrids, buildings efficiency
Rapid urbanisation in the developing world means millions of new buildings are going up. Now is the time to make sure they are energy efficient from the start, avoiding the major “rich world” headache of retrofitting. Given most of the developing world exists in hotter climates, cooling – unchecked - could account for as much as 40% of final electricity demand in some countries by 2050. To keep a cap on that, efficient buildings and air … [Read more...]
Gas v Electric new buildings: U.S. standards agency backs gas with out-of-date data, says RMI
Official reports matter. That’s why the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) is taking to task the U.S.’s National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) which published a paper stating that all-electric systems are more carbon intensive and more costly than gas-fired systems in new buildings. The NIST paper assumed a high reliance on coal as the primary source for electricity generation in their Maryland case study. Those stats are out of date, … [Read more...]
District Heating: heat-as-a-service and sector coupling
Space heating and hot water account for around 70% of energy consumption in residential buildings. Any progress in buildings efficiencies will see overall energy consumption decline. But that presents a serious challenge to the existing business model: why invest in a sector that’s selling less energy? The answer is to change that business model, says Oskar Kvarnström, Energy Policy Analyst at the IEA. In doing so new doors are opened. At the … [Read more...]
India aims for competitively priced superefficient ACs
Cooling represents over 6% of the world’s total final energy consumption, and growing. Of the 2.8bn people living in hot tropical regions only 8% have air conditioners (ACs) - it’s 90% in the US and Japan. With growing affluence, most will buy cheap entry-level ACs, with their low efficiency and polluting refrigerants. To cope, India will need 600GW of new power generation capacity by 2050 – equivalent to the installation of 1,200 coal power … [Read more...]
36bn GWh: the “limitless” Geothermal from old UK coal mines
The Earth gets hotter by 2.5C to 3.5C with each 100m depth. It’s what makes geothermal energy possible, anywhere. In the UK geothermal could meet the nation’s heat demands for at least 100 years, say Jon Gluyas, Andrew Crossland and Charlotte Adams of the Durham Energy Institute. Properly managed it could last indefinitely. Given that heat does not travel well, geothermal must be developed locally. Fortunately, accessible heat lies beneath or … [Read more...]
Leaked German govt report: emissions target will be missed despite on-target renewables
A leaked draft of Germany’s Energiewende Progress Report 2019, due to be released by the economy ministry in May or June, predicts the country will miss its targets for reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions by wide margins. This is despite the inevitable emissions reductions due to the 2009 recession and being on track for renewables. If no other measures are taken Germany will reduce emissions by 33% by 2020, falling short of the … [Read more...]
U.S. innovative financing makes buildings energy efficiency affordable even to poor communities
Buildings energy efficiency is not moving fast enough to meet the Paris Agreement goals. Retrofitting old buildings is extremely costly and needs much more investment, as our previous articles have detailed. Innovative models of financing are urgently needed. In an article for Ensia, Nate Berg explains how by rolling upgrade costs into monthly bills for poorer communities, U.S. utilities are helping customers save energy and money at the same … [Read more...]
Transforming Heating and Cooling creates jobs, new businesses
The UK has had great success in reducing emissions: down 43% overall since 1990. But, like most places, Heating and Cooling is struggling. Mark Woodward, of The Smart City Alliance and Nordic Heat, sets out a plan for progress, and includes lessons from Europe. The focus is on four core energy efficiency activities: reduce, recover, store and distribute. He explains how this also opens up new business models: in one town in Sweden chemicals firm … [Read more...]
EXCLUSIVE: Geothermal could represent a far bigger share of renewables
The IEA says geothermal energy could account for only 3.5% of annual global electricity production and 3.9% of energy for heat (excluding ground source heat pumps) by 2050. But is this down to short term thinking? Geothermal could make a much bigger contribution to renewables, provided it is put onto the fast track like wind and solar, says Alexander Richter, President of the International Geothermal Association. … [Read more...]
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