France’s energy efficiency ambitions for buildings are well off target. Buildings account for 28% of the nation’s emissions and they’ve hardly reduced since 1990 – only by 3%. It’s because of the lack of development of the buildings renovation sector, explains Andreas Rüdinger at IDDRI. Without it, there’s little chance of renovating 500,000 housing units per year and bringing the entire housing stock up to the "low-energy building" (BBC) … [Read more...]
The PAC Scenario: net-zero by 2040 to meet Europe’s Paris goals
The EU is not on track to meet its Paris Agreement obligations on emissions and limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5°C. CAN Europe and the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) present their Paris Agreement Compatible (PAC) scenario, designed to do just that. It’s been created through the careful analysis of contributions from more than 150 stakeholders including NGOs, scientists, industry and grid operators. Jörg Mühlenhoff at CAN Europe … [Read more...]
German Geothermal: from 1.2TWh to 100TWh by 2050?
The IEA’s Sustainable Development Scenario sees the world's geothermal power generation tripling to almost 300 TWh by 2030. That’s because there’s an almost unlimited supply that can provide power, heating and cooling. It’s also a continuous supply uninterrupted by the weather, unlike solar and wind. The plants are small and quiet. For heating, ground-source heat pumps use significantly less electricity than other technologies. Writing for CLEW, … [Read more...]
Germany’s Corona stimulus package: what’s in it for energy, climate?
€30bn of Germany’s €130bn Corona economic stimulus package is dedicated to the energy sector and the climate. Simon Göss at Energy Brainpool runs through the four main areas of focus. There’s €11bn to fund a reduction in the EEG levy (renewables surcharge) to help electricity consumers. €9bn goes to creating a hydrogen industry for Germany. There’s €7bn to promote e-mobility (tax exemptions, subsidies, co-financing of charging stations and … [Read more...]
How to cut Full Life-cycle Buildings Emissions
Most efforts to decarbonise buildings are focused on “operational” emissions. That’s because, once constructed, buildings are responsible for a massive 30% of global final energy use and 28% of carbon emissions. But that focus has meant the “embodied” carbon – from the materials, construction, demolition, and recycling of buildings – has received little attention, explain Meng Wang and Yihan Hao at RMI. That’s despite the numbers still being … [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...]
Will Member States support the EC’s green recovery plan?
The EC’s “Next Generation EU” plan for a joint loan of €750bn is a major breakthrough as it accepts the need for the member states to share a large debt burden to revive the EU economy. It will be in addition to the European budget under discussion before the pandemic crisis. The other breakthrough is that green policies – climate neutrality, biodiversity, “food-to-fork” - are central, explains Nicolas Berghmans at IDDRI. He summarises the plan, … [Read more...]
Why savings from the 2009 Buildings Refits stimuli were poor. Let’s do better this time
“Shovel ready” buildings renovations and refits can play an important part in a nation’s economic recovery programme. It gets money straight into the pockets of manual workers doing the refits, across the whole country, cuts the energy bills of all (both low and high income households), and accelerates efficiency gains for meeting climate targets. But first we need to learn lessons from the U.S. renovation stimuli of 2009, says Meredith Fowlie at … [Read more...]
Re-shaping the EU ETS as a safety net, not a driver
The EU ETS (Emissions Trading System) has struggled to cope with the current economic crisis which has caused a drop in the European carbon price, while the expected drastic drop in 2020 emissions will only add to the existing surplus of allowances. This highlights how necessary it is to reform the mechanism for managing this surplus or even to implement a carbon floor price, explain Charlotte Vailles at I4CE and Nicolas Berghmans at IDDRI. They … [Read more...]
Investing for tomorrow, because Energy subsidies will decline 25% by 2050 – analysis
IRENA has modelled energy subsidies to 2030 and 2050 for their pathway to meet the Paris targets. Here, Michael Taylor summarises their findings. Firstly, they estimate today’s global direct energy sector subsidies to be $634bn/year (2017 figures). The vast majority, $447bn, went to fossil fuels. (By the way, he points out that none of these figures include the externality costs - pollution, healthcare, environment - which equate to trillions and … [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...]
IRENA’s Global Renewables Outlook and how Europe can lead the way
If the coronavirus slump has knocked everything off track IRENA’s first ever Global Renewables Outlook is a timely reminder of what that track should look like. It can help policymakers design stimuli packages that will get us back onto it, and even accelerate the transition. IRENA’s Gayathri Prakash, Nicholas Wagner and Ricardo Gorini run through the comprehensive report’s main recommendations. Annual investment, shares and GW targets to 2030 … [Read more...]
Designing the Covid-19 stimulus: what the 2008 crisis can teach us
Policy makers around the world are hearing a lot of advice on how to design their stimulus packages. This comes from the IEA where Fatih Birol lays out five fundamental lessons we can learn from the stimulus packages that came out of the 2008 global financial crisis. His main headings are: Build on what you already have – and think big (e.g. feed-in tariffs, production tax credits); Choose technologies that are ready for the big time (e.g. wind, … [Read more...]
Accelerate EV infra, buildings refits to use electricity’s looming spare capacity
How do we turn the pandemic downturn into an executable opportunity, above and beyond targets and promises? Chris Nelder at RMI presents data on how electricity load has dropped during the lockdown in the U.S. That load will return when the economy recovers. In the interim capacity will go unused. New capacity in the pipeline could be delayed. Nelder suggests policy makers grasp the opportunity to fill that gap and use that capacity by directing … [Read more...]
Construction emissions: “mass wood” prototypes halve CO2, rapid modular deployment, 18 stories
Building and construction emissions account for two-thirds of the global total, with one tenth coming from the construction phase alone. David Chandler at MIT reviews their research, in collaboration with a range of specialist companies, into wooden buildings. Their construction emissions should be as low as half that of concrete or steel. The key is the development of large scale, cross-laminated “mass wood”. Factory built modules can be … [Read more...]
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