Like many nations, Germany is struggling to find a way to replace fossil fuel-powered boilers in millions of homes and buildings with heat pumps and other cleaner alternatives. Heating accounts for a whopping 15% of the countryâs emissions. As Sören Amelang at CLEW explains, the up-front cost of a new clean heater can be double that of existing mass-produced fossil equivalent, so home owners are resistant. In 2022, two thirds of all new heating … [Read more...]
Heating Households and Buildings: Heat Pumps will be up to three times cheaper than Green Hydrogen
A new study concludes that heating from 100% green-hydrogen would be up to three times more expensive than one based on 100% electrification of buildings with heat pumps. Josh Gabbatiss at Carbon Brief summarises the findings, who says itâs yet more evidence to push back against the voices of politicians and fossil-fuel companies wanting to see hydrogen in the household and buildings heating mix (for example, the UK is planning a âhydrogen … [Read more...]
Buildings Renovation: if Europe had started a decade ago it wouldnât have a Russian oil & gas problem
Itâs a message we are starting to see a lot. If ambitious climate policies struggling to be implemented today had been launched a decade ago, Europe wouldnât have a Russian oil and gas problem. Andreas RĂŒdinger at IDDRI looks at buildings renovations in France. Two missed targets, proposed in 2008, are a 38% reduction in energy consumption in existing buildings by 2020, and 400,000 âmajorâ renovations annually. If they had been met, natural gas … [Read more...]
If Buildings Renovation fails, the EU ETS pricing mechanism must change
If the EU âRenovation Waveâ for buildings fails, the massive ramp up of clean electrification required to compensate will come into direct conflict with EU ETS pricing formulas, say Sebastian Osorio and Michael Pahle at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Oliver Ruhnau at the Hertie School in Berlin. If the cap in the original ETS is too tight relative to the Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR) targets, its carbon prices may rise … [Read more...]
PET: a toolkit to make existing Coal plants more efficient
Many nations are struggling to phase out coal. Some, like China, are heavily dependent on it, and have more plants in the pipeline to ensure energy security and keep prices low. In other words, a lot of coal will remain in operation for the medium term. Given that, it makes sense to make them more efficient while they are in use. Daisy Chi at ECECP looks at a new set of tools â the Plant Efficiency Toolbox (PET) - that can analyse and optimise a … [Read more...]
Heat pumps vs boilers: renewables vs efficiency?
Heating and Cooling (H&C) is responsible for 50% of energy use in the EU and is still heavily dependent on fossil fuels. The opportunity to change your installed system wonât come up more than a couple of times before 2050 so the choice we make now has a large, lasting effect on the breakdown of the entire energy mix. H&C is the term used for the vast amounts of energy used to regulate the temperatures of the buildings we live and work … [Read more...]
