Buildings are responsible for 36% of total EU carbon emissions. So, since the start of 2021 European legislation requires all new buildings to be ânearly zero energyâ. The frontrunners are France and Flanders in Belgium, according to a new report from the Buildings Performance Institute Europe (BPIE), writes Clare Taylor. Both jurisdictions have plans for phasing out fossil fuels in new buildings within five years. Taylor explains how Flanders … [Read more...]
Redesigning UK electricity taxes to boost Heat Pump sales
In the UK, consumer prices for electricity are five times more expensive than for gas. It is a disincentive to adopt electric heat pumps. To make things harder, 23% of the electricity price comes from climate and social levies. Itâs just 2% for gas. No wonder the UK continues to install about 1.7 million gas boilers a year. Jan Rosenow and Richard Lowes at RAP call for changes that will incentivise customers to buy heat pumps while having a … [Read more...]
We’re not costing energy correctly: reward clean energy optimisation, not maximum generation
Laura Sandys at Energy Systems Catapult says policy makers today are too focussed on rewarding clean energy generation, in other words supplying as much energy as possible. With that comes a focus on reducing the cost of the energy generated. But how about reducing demand? Demand optimisation should be equally rewarded: efficiency, non-generation demand management (even at the household level: think EVs and heat pumps), and any assets that … [Read more...]
UK: exposing the gap between ambitious climate laws and actual policies
Like many nations, the UK has big gaps between what is actually needed to reach net zero by 2050, what targets and ambitions have actually passed into law, and what policies are actually in place to comply with those laws. The UKâs climate watchdog, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), has issued two reports that measure the UKâs performance and makes recommendations, summarised here by Josh Gabbatiss at Carbon Brief. The first report focuses on … [Read more...]
Improving cost and performance modelling for energy technologies, old and new
Measuring the performance of an energy technology is key to informing policies and pathways as the transition scales up. But are we measuring all the right things and getting accurate answers? If weâre not, those policies and pathways could end up wrong. Paul Sapin at Imperial College, UK, explains how they are creating a library of data-rich models to greatly improve predictive power for all energy technologies, both existing and emerging. He … [Read more...]
Net Zero by 2050 technically and economically achievable, says Energy Transitions Commission report
Making Mission Possible, the latest report by the Energy Transitions Commission, describes a net-zero world by mid-century as technically and economically possible. The solutions are already available or close to being brought to market. What is still missing is the will to embrace, rapidly and at scale, the inevitable disruption that will ultimately deliver net-zero emissions, lower air pollution, cheaper energy bills, create new jobs and raise … [Read more...]
Swedenâs new âprosumersâ: electricity generation at the city, village and residential level
54% of Swedenâs power already comes from renewables â the target is 100% by 2040 - and more and more is being generated locally on a small distributed scale, says Harry Kretchmer writing for the World Economic Forum. âDistrict Heatingâ plants are today using excess heat to warm over 75% of Swedish homes. Residential generation is happening too, creating âprosumersâ who both produce and consume. In Ludivika, 1970s flats have been retrofitted with … [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 Germanyâs 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 governmentâs 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...]
CCUS, nuclear, industrial heat, hydrogen, smart grids: âlarge unitâ innovation needs more support
How do we accelerate innovation across all technologies? Simon Bennett at the IEA breaks down the task into âsmall unitâ and âlarge unitâ challenges. The first is easier and moves faster. Thanks to their small size and unit cost, heat pumps, EVs and solar panels benefit from mass production, mass deployment (100,000 to 100m units/year globally) and large customer markets with fierce competition. They can also easily leverage other fast-evolving … [Read more...]
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