For the first time in the U.S. a utility is piloting a community geothermal project to heat and cool 40 buildings and cut customers’ bills. Success will lead to scale up and replication, explains Adele Peters writing for the World Economic Forum. The case for community geothermal is very strong. Though geothermal’s up-front costs of installing pipes deep underground are high, running costs are low. The pilot, in Framingham (Massachusetts), will … [Read more...]
Geothermal Heat Pumps: can new U.S. “IRA” support make it go mainstream?
Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act in the U.S. is meant to drive forward the best clean energy solutions. To help make sure geothermal heat pumps play their fullest role, RMI has done a study of its benefits as well as published guides on how developers can take advantage of the various new laws and support mechanisms. Lauren Reeg, Mike Henchen, Chris Potter and Chris Stone at RMI start with a summary of the technology and its applications, before … [Read more...]
IEA’s global “CO2 Emissions in 2022” report: by sector, fuel, region, heating +more
The IEA has published “CO2 Emissions in 2022”, giving estimates of CO2 emissions from all energy sources and industrial processes globally. Emissions from energy combustion increased by 423 Mt, while emissions from industrial processes decreased by 102 Mt. Emissions from various sources (sector, fuel, region, heating, etc.) are broken down, with reasons for why the change happened. The report is part of the IEA’s first global stocktake of the … [Read more...]
Russia–Ukraine war: household energy costs worldwide have nearly doubled, with the poorest hit hardest
A new study measures the effect of the Russia-Ukraine war on household energy costs worldwide. It’s nearly doubled, explain Klaus Hubacek, Jin Yan and Yuru Guan at the University of Groningen and Yuli Shan at the University of Birmingham. Their study sums the costs of direct energy like heating, cooling, lighting and mobility, as well as the indirect costs through the energy used to produce goods and services. That doubling translates into an … [Read more...]
How to sell Heat Pumps to the public in Europe
In EU households, 62.8% of energy consumption is for space heating, and another 15.1% for water heating, mostly powered by fossil fuels. Heating and cooling is responsible for 52% of final energy demand in Europe. So, with REPowerEU, the EU has once again strengthened support for heat pumps to achieve energy independence and climate goals. Heat pump sales in Europe grew by an unprecedented 34% in 2021, thanks to a total 2.18m heat pump units … [Read more...]
Cutting energy usage with Behaviour Change: Covid and Russia’s war show it can happen fast
Technology alone won’t meet our net zero targets. For the foreseeable future there will always be carbon-intensive assets and hard-to-abate sectors. Only “behaviour change” by citizens worldwide can bridge the gap that technology cannot. And the reduced energy use that it delivers will also lower the targets that the rapid growth of clean energy supply are now chasing. Here the IEA lays out the challenges in its Behavioural Changes tracking … [Read more...]
Evaporation and Radiation cooling: no power required (but the aerogel must get cheaper)
It is well known that evaporation and radiation are two ways of keeping something cool. David Chandler at MIT explains how researchers there have created an experimental 3-layered cell that combines evaporation and radiation with an insulator to deliver cooling that needs no power. It can provide around 9°C of cooling from the ambient temperature, enough to permit safe food storage for about 40% longer under very humid conditions, and could … [Read more...]
Netherlands and China co-operate on Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage for heating and cooling
Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) accesses the stable temperature of groundwater to warm buildings in winter and cool them in summer. The solution uses much less power than conventional heating and cooling systems. As Daisy Chi at ECECP explains, ATES first took off in China in the 1960s but ran into problems with the required circulation of the groundwater. However, the technology has been developed and optimised in the Netherlands: of the … [Read more...]
Residential energy use: “interventions” that alter daily habits vs top-down regulations
Getting people to change their behaviour is part of the net-zero plan, with residential energy consumption at 20% of total energy demand. How big a part can it play, and how quickly? Traditional methods like economic incentives and providing consumers with raw consumption data don’t always get the results expected. Here, Elisabetta Cornago at the IEA describes behavioural “interventions” that alter daily habits, are cheaper than large-scale … [Read more...]
Super-efficient space cooling can mitigate 0.5°C of warming by 2100
Space cooling eats up 10% of global electricity use, and by 2050 total energy consumed could triple as ownership takes off in developing countries. It’s why the Global Cooling Prize was launched to find AC designs that will have an 80% lower climate impact, explains John Matson at RMI. The two main design goals were to reduce electricity demand, and use refrigerants with lower global warming potential (GWP) than traditional refrigerant gases. The … [Read more...]
“China and Europe – Energy Efficiency, the foundation of our net-zero future” [EVENT highlights and VIDEO]
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...]
Cooling: up-front costs are the barrier to new solutions that cut energy use by two-thirds
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...]
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...]
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...]
Too “low-hanging fruit” is not sweet enough (and eventually neither clean nor cheap)!
At a lunch debate organised by the European Heat Pump Association (EHPA) on “The costs of a low level of ambition in greening the heating and cooling sector” and hosted by EUFORES President MEP Jeppe Kofod on 30 January, representatives from industry, civil society, the European Commission (EC) and MEPs from several countries and political groups (Jeppe Kofod, Bendt Bendtsen, Theresa Griffin, Jo Leinen, Gesine Meissner and Paul RĂĽbig) … [Read more...]
