President Biden's Leaders Summit on Climate last month helped focus minds on making firm commitments to reducing global emissions. As we all know, targets are one thing, credible and realistic solutions are another. To understand the challenge better, Dolf Gielen, Ricardo Gorini and Gayathri Prakash at IRENA break down into themes those areas that need much more effort and, if dealt with successfully, can get us to net zero by 2050: structural … [Read more...]
Why expensive Buildings Renovations? By the time they’re done the grid will be emissions-free
The big budgets being talked about for the transition require us to decide how much to spend, and on what. Maximilian Auffhammer at the Energy Institute at Haas explains why he thinks a lot of the money being earmarked for buildings renovations would be better spent elsewhere. By the time the renovation wave has successfully “reached the shoreline” in the next few decades buildings will be powered overwhelmingly by clean grids (that’s the plan, … [Read more...]
European Commission should intensify political action in 2021 to align Renovation Wave with EU Climate Targets, BPIE says.
In its new analysis, BPIE (Buildings Performance Institute Europe) urges the European Commission to intensify political coordination and coherence in the implementation phase of the Renovation Wave strategy, to ensure full decarbonisation of the EU building stock in line with EU climate goals. … [Read more...]
How to ramp up Green Mortgages for climate-friendly house improvements
Green mortgages are used to finance climate-friendly house improvements. In the U.S. they already exist, but need to be made far more accessible and marketed widely. Greg Hopkins at RMI cites their report “Build Back Better Homes: How to Unlock America’s Single-Family Green Mortgage Market” to explain that the financial markets are looking increasingly favourably at lending that is certified as ESG (environmental, social, and governance). … [Read more...]
“China and Europe – Energy Efficiency, the foundation of our net-zero future” [EVENT highlights and VIDEO]
![“China and Europe – Energy Efficiency, the foundation of our net-zero future” [EVENT highlights and VIDEO]](https://energypost.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/BANNER-THUMB-China-Efficiency-150x99.jpg)
We present the videos of the third of our three, 4-session workshops on the opportunities for European energy solutions providers to take part in China’s energy transition, held on April 13th and 14th 2021. In this workshop the theme was efficiency, with special reference to finance, buildings, heating and cooling, and smart solutions. Both regions need to go beyond the efficiency "easy wins" so we take a close look at what Europe can offer as … [Read more...]
Buildings Efficiency in China, and what EU partners should know
To set up our upcoming online event (April 13th & 14th) "China: Carbon Neutral by 2060 -EFFICIENCY FIRST” we look at how Buildings Efficiency is being tackled by Energy Management Contracting (EMC), when an ESCO (energy service company) provides energy retrofit services and gets paid for the future energy savings. The up-front investment cost is recouped over the multi-year lifetime of the service contract by taking a cut of the genuine … [Read more...]
Energy efficiency is the “first fuel”, making decarbonisation easier for all other sectors
To set up our upcoming online event “China: Carbon Neutral by 2060 -EFFICIENCY FIRST” we look at the profound importance of efficiency to the global energy transition. Energy efficiency is the “first fuel”, meaning success here will make the decarbonisation of all the other sectors and technologies easier, faster and cheaper. Basically, use and waste less energy. Alyssa Fischer at the IEA starts by noting that their Sustainable Development … [Read more...]
Long-Term Renovation Strategies not on track to deliver climate-neutrality by 2050, indicating need for full revision of Energy Performance of Buildings Directive
A new report by the Buildings Performance Institute Europe (BPIE) finds that EU Member States continue to underplay the role of the building sector in delivering a climate-neutral Europe. … [Read more...]
An EU ETS that lifts carbon prices too high can make clean energy transitions harder
This coming Friday 19th March, 11.00 to 12.30 CET, we have an online panel discussion plus audience Q&A on "The Role of the EU ETS in Decarbonisation to 2030". All are invited. We will dig into how the EU ETS is being shaped to ensure it meets its primary objective, the decarbonisation of Europe. To help set it up, Wanda Buk, Vice-President for Regulatory Affairs at PGE Group answers questions that are being asked of Poland’s position and its … [Read more...]
EU Recovery funds: where is the support for District Heating?
District Heating is an efficient way to heat homes, particularly in a country like Latvia where 58% of its primary energy consumption is used for heating. But Selīna Vancāne at Riga City Council is very concerned that the draft EU Recovery plans do not include any support under the climate goals for district heating projects. Perhaps it’s because of a blind spot: most of Europe is prioritising individual heating units powered by electricity. … [Read more...]
Retail real estate needs Paris-Proof decarbonisation strategy to ensure contribution to global and EU emissions targets, the Buildings Performance Institute Europe says
The report marks the launch of Paris-Proof Retail Real Estate, an initiative that looks to develop a vision and strategy to support the European retail real estate sector reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, in line with the Paris Agreement. … [Read more...]
EU Buildings Renovations: get ready for minimum energy performance standards (MEPS)
To meet Europe’s 2030 climate targets the buildings sector must cut its emissions by 60%. That means annual renovations need to jump by an order of magnitude; at the moment it’s crawling at 1% per year. Worse, standard renovations save very little energy, just 9% in homes and 16% in commercial buildings. It’s the deep renovations that cut energy by 60% or more, but that’s only happening to under 0.3% of the stock. Louise Sunderland at RAP … [Read more...]
Policy-makers still undervalue Energy Efficiency as a grid resource
Supply-side solutions to grid stability are few in number, and expensive. More baseload generation, electricity networks, capacity markets that pay power plants all year round to be available for dispatch during a few peak hours. Demand-side solutions are usually smaller, and multitudinous: building fabric improvements, equipment upgrades, customer behaviour interventions, and more. So, for grid stability, the principle of “Efficiency First” - … [Read more...]
Buildings Renovation in Germany: success story or potential failure?
The German Federal Association of Housing and Real Estate Companies (GdW) has claimed that money and effort spent on the nation’s buildings renovations have not worked. But Andreas Rüdinger at IDDRI has looked into the evidence and concluded that the opposite is the case. CO2 emissions from the residential sector in 2018 were 37% lower than in 1990. Though final energy consumption was broadly stable, that’s because efficiency gains were offset by … [Read more...]
Nine advantages small-scale solutions have for reducing global emissions
Which is best? Spending your budget on a million 1 KW solar panels or a single 1 GW nuclear/hydro/gas plant? Lots of electric bikes or a single tram system? Lots of smart thermostats or whole-building retrofits? Charlie Wilson (University of East Anglia), Caroline Zimm (IIASA) and Simon De Stercke (Imperial College London) summarise their study that lists the advantages of small-scale “granular” solutions over large-scale “lumpy” ones. Granular … [Read more...]
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