Energy efficiency

Date Promulgated: 20 July 2004
Date Effective: 2 May 2005
Policy Status: In force


Decrees voted 20 July 2004 require Italian electricity and gas suppliers to help their customers save energy engendered the 2005 White Certificates trading scheme. In compliance with specific energy conservation targets, all Italian power and gas distributors with at least 100,000 end customers at the close of 2001 will be able to - as of May 2006 - trade white certificates of certified energy savings. Energy service providers, subsidiaries of electricity and gas distributors and distributors themselves will all sell energy efficiency certificates representing primary energy savings of one tonne of oil equivalent.

Target-bound distributors can also earn certificates in their own name by developing their own conservation projects to benefit consumers, or through the purchase of certificates through bilateral transaction.

The White Certificates represent marketable documents issued by the Energy Market Administrator testifying the energy saved by the energy distribution companies - as well as by their controlled partnerships - and by the Energy Service Companies (ESCO). All these companies must undertake and implement specific projects aimed at improving the energy conversion efficiency. As opposed to the Green Certificates concerning the electricity production, the White Certificates correspond to the units of primary energy saved rather than produced.

The mechanism introduced by the White Certificates is directed to the energy and gas distribution companies with over 100.000 clients. The contribution is tailored to the overall goals based on the ratio between the energy distributed to final consumers connected to their network and the total energy distributed throughout the national territory.

The White Certificates can be exchanged by means of bilateral contracts, or in the frame of a specific market ruled by GME. By marketing the documents, the distributors which are obliged by law to reach the stated targets are able to buy them from specialised companies, achieving cost reduction and at the same time assuring the stated efficiency level.

The following article is the result of an interview with Randall Bowie and provides a brief overview of the efforts of the European Commission to improve the energy end-use efficiency throughout the EU. The article is published as an eBook so you can scroll the different pages using the titles below. The full article is also available as a PDF for download.

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Randall Bowie grew up in the U.S. and in Europe but has European roots. After completing his studies of Chemistry and Economics at the University of Illinois, he moved to Sweden to continue graduate school at the University of Stockholm. He married a Swedish wife, and became a Swedish citizen. He worked for many years for the Swedish ministries of finance, industry, and energy, and the Swedish Energy Agency before joining DG Energy & Transport of the European Commission (then called DG 17) in 1996. He was one of the driving forces at the Commission behind the Buildings Directive, the Energy End-use Efficiency and Energy Services Directive, and the Energy Efficiency Action Plans. In 2007 he left the Commission for a chief consultancy position at Rockwool International A/S, stationed currently in Denmark and in Brussels.

 

 

 

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Few people are better acquainted with EU policies regarding energy efficiency than Randall Bowie. During his 11 year career at DG Energy and Transport of the European Commission, he became one of the driving forces on energy efficiency (EE) promotion and one of the architects of the Energy End-use Efficiency and Energy Services Directive and of the Energy Efficiency Action Plan. We asked him to clarify a few ambiguities, to provide us with some background information, and to express his personal opinion on some of those EU policies.

An overview of the EU directives and action plans regarding energy end-use efficiency

Labelling Directive (September 1992): imposes an energy label and standard information regarding energy consumption of household appliances

Buildings Directive (December 2002): includes several points on the energy performance of buildings, as well as health issues

Eco-design Directive (July 2005): establishes a framework for setting eco-design requirements for energy-using products

Energy Services Directive (April 2006): abbreviation of the ‘Energy End-use Efficiency and Energy Services Directive’, discussed in this interview

Energy Efficiency Action Plan (October 2006): the second Action Plan to improve energy efficiency in the European Community, based on the Commission’s Green Paper on Energy Efficiency or Doing More with Less (June 2005), and a follow-on to the first Action Plan (26/04/2000)

 (Click image to view webcast)

This webcast is the first in an ongoing series on busbars by David Chapman of Leonardo ENERGY. It discusses the design of busbar systems, including the choice of material, how to size busbars for a particular current rating and how to optimise the lifetime costs.

By S Diga et al

The authors identified some auxiliary equipments of modern lighting installations: electronic ballasts of QTP type, dimable ballasts of QUICKTRONIC DE LUXE HF…DIM type, HF Regulator Electronic Ballast HF-R DALI, presence detectors (of the control system CONTROL –IT “ETAP”: OTRIOS Philips LRI 8133/10). These components are adequately chosen and representative for nowadays configurations. A series of measurements of power components, harmonics and power factor were performed with high-performance instruments: Voltech PM 100-Power Analyzer Printer & RS Interface & VPAS Lite-Visual Power Analysis Software. The paper presents a pertinent analysis and a reconstitution of the measured signals considering the advantages represented by power consumption’s reduction, but also the perspective of harmonic distortion amplification and power factor reduction.

(click image to view webcast)

In the third and final part of this series retrofit energy saving devices, Bill Howe from EPRI introduces a case study evaluating the energy saving potential of a transient voltage surge suppression device.

Related

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By F Gonzalex-Longatt

This paper is an intent to quantify the impact of distributed generation (DG) over active and reactive power losses on distribution system. The novelty of this paper is the use of new a relevant index: DG penetration level, DG dispersion and DG technologies. Several simulations over a simple distribution system were done. Implications about location and size of DG units were considered using penetration (all scenarios possible) and dispersion levels (including utopian scenarios). Reactive and voltage support capacity was considered, including relative consumption as inductions generators (IG). Simulations over a test distribution system (11.47 kV) representative of Kumamoto area, Japan, were developed using a Matlab™ program coded including specific technologies models. Minimum losses profiles was obtained with better reactive capacity support

The increase in energy demand, the growing instability in energy supply and the EU CO² emmissions reduction commitments have stressed the need for an international strategy on energy efficiency and the diversification of energy sources.

Energy efficiency is, then, a topic which can be found at every international standardisation level (ISO, IEC, CEN, CENELEC, ITU-T, ETSI). This series of short articles aims at providing a brief summary of the main activities currently ongoing by the various international standardisation bodies relevant this field of interest.


European Commission-JRC

The European Commission, through its research center located in Ispra, Italy (Joint Research Centre, JRC), since 2003 has undertaken activities of analysis, proposal, and voluntary protocols (Code of Conduct) on energy efficiency, aiming mainly (but not only) at equipment standby consumption reduction.
Currently CoCs deal with:

• External Power Supply: CoC related to efficiency and no load consumption of external power supply devices (ac/dc type.)
  
• UPS: first version of this CoC was published in December 2006.
  
• Digital TV services: CoC related to TV equipment and Set Top Boxes.
  
• Broadband systems (both Network and User side.) CoC BB has been developed by: Regulators, Operators and system manufacturers. In particular, with reference to operators, this CoC can be adopted on a voluntary basis starting from January 2007.
  
• Internet Data Center: This CoC deals with power consumption, conditioning techniques, virtualisation, metrics and methods for data gathering. The importance is related to consumption share of IDCs, which is very relevant today (approximately 10%-20% of operators industrial consumption) and most of all, continuously increasing. Main regulators active on this topic are: Green Grid (EPA), UK (MTP), Australia, Swiss and Cina. The activities started in 2007.

The increase in energy demand, the growing instability in energy supply and the EU CO² emmissions reduction commitments have stressed the need for an international strategy on energy efficiency and the diversification of energy sources.

Energy efficiency is, then, a topic which can be found at every international standardisation level (ISO, IEC, CEN, CENELEC, ITU-T, ETSI). This series of short articles provides a brief summary of the main activities currently on going by the various international standardisation bodies relevant to this field of interest.


ETSI

For several years, the telecommunication world has made energy efficiency an internal requirement to optimise consumption and reduce costs, as well as impact for users.

In 2007, ETSI inserted this topic among its strategical fields.

In 2006, study points on power management for xDSL were created by ETSI TM6. Activities are supported by all main European operators.

Also, ETSI EE (Environmental Engineering) started similar activities related to system consumption and aiming to define extended environmental ranges in order to reduce conditioning impact, in particular focusing on new generation network architecture (NGN).

In September 2007, a new version of the document ETSI TS 102 533, “Energy consumption in Broadband Telecommunication Network Equipment” was published. This document, (prepared with reference to CoC BB published by the European Commission) shoots for the definition of consumption thresholds and methodologies and tests for broadband devices consumption measurements.


ITU-T

Starting from 2006, study points on power management for xDSL have been created by ITU-T (in particular Study Group 15).

Activities are supported by AT&T, Belgacom, BT, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, KPN, NTT, Swisscom, Telecom Italia, Telenor and TeliaSonera.

A document is currently under development that defines requirements (as defined by operators) for broadband ADSL and VDSL2 devices consumption reduction without creating instability on telecommunication network. This document in particular is focused on the new technical solution called “low power mode,” which allows the reduction of device consumption during limited data transmission flow operating times.

The increase in energy demand, the growing instability in energy supply and the EU CO² emmissions reduction commitments have stressed the need for an international strategy on energy efficiency and the diversification of energy sources.

Energy efficiency is, then, a topic which can be found at every international standardisation level (ISO, IEC, CEN, CENELEC, ITU-T, ETSI). This series of short articles provides a brief summary of the main activities currently on going by the various international standardisation bodies relevant to this field of interest.

ISO

In 2005, the ISO General Assembly highlighted the importance of the relationship between standardisation, competitiveness and innovation and expressed the opinion that ISO should foster new initiatives and be more proactive in order to anticipate new fields where international standardisation might support the dissemination of innovation.

As a follow-up to this recommendation, (set forth in General Assembly Resolution 5/2005,) and further to the proposal developed by CSC/STRAT, based on the work done by the “Task force on innovative fields of work for ISO,” the ISO Council has approved, through its resolution 35/2006, a pilot process to complement the existing approaches for identifying and prioritising innovative fields of work. In this resolution, the Secretary-General is asked  to initiate the pilot implementation of the process immediately, starting with the field of energy efficiency and renewable energy sources, to be followed, in a timeframe dependent on available resources, by biotechnology.

IEC

IEC created a working group (SMB-SG1) aiming to analyse the current situation in the field of energy efficiency standardisation (as awell as renewables) and to identify standardisation gaps and opportunities.
The kick-off meeting of this Task Force took place in May 2007.

The group eventually agreed to the following Terms of Reference (ToR):

• to analyse the status quo in the field of energy efficiency and renewable energy sources (existing IEC standards, ongoing projects)
  
• to identify “white spots”/gaps/opportunities and find new ways of achieving energy efficiency in the electrotechnical domain
  
• to set objectives for electrical energy efficiency (EEE) in products and systems
  
• to formulate recommendations for further actions

The increase in energy demand, the growing instability in energy supply and the EU CO² emmissions reduction commitments have stressed the need for an international strategy on energy efficiency and the diversification of energy sources.

Energy efficiency is, then, a topic which can be found at every international standardisation level (ISO, IEC, CEN, CENELEC, ITU-T, ETSI). This series of short articles provides a brief summary of the main activities currently on going by the various international standardisation bodies relevant to this field of interest.

CEN-CENELEC

CEN and CENELEC responded to these challenges and created a horizontal advisory structure (Sector Forum) that can draw from an extended community of experts in a position to identify the standardisation needs in the field of energy management, including its relation to EU legislation.

The first meeting of the Sector Forum took place in 2006.

It is designed:

• to maintain and enlarge the network of partners created during the lifetime of the CEN/CENELEC BT JWG “Energy Management”, especially with regards to new members
  
• to initiate further investigation and to evaluate in which field or for which subject, further standardisation work is needed
  
• to coordinate ongoing European Standardisation activities concerning Energy Management
  
• to organize the CEN and CENELEC response to European legislation and Europe general strategy in the Energy Management sector
  
• to maintain the exchange of information, experience and prospecting, especially on the initiatives in course in the different countries or at European level

The other main initiative undertaken has probably been the creation in 2002 of a joint CEN/CENELEC Working Group: BT/JWG "Energy Management”. Main objective of this working group is to act as advisory group for CEN and CENELEC technical boards on all political and strategic matters related to standardisation in the field of energy efficiency.

The JWG finalized its activity results with a comprehensive report providing a summary of main priorities identified for standardisation activities on energy management field. In particuar it's possible to highlight the following priorities:

• energy efficiency and saving calculations
• energy management and services – general requirements and qualification procedures
  

These priorities led to the creation of two joint CEN/CENELEC task forces.

In June 2006, Joint Technical Board Task Force 190 (BT/TF 190, Energy efficiency and saving calculations) began work on the elaboration of standards for common methods of calculation of energy consumption, energy efficiencies and energy savings. The aim is to develop a common measurement and verification protocol and a methodology for energy use indicators. The inaugural meeting of this Task Force took place in March 2007.

Joint Technical Board Task Force 189 (BT/TF 190, “Energy management and services - General requirements and qualification procedures”.)

BT/TF 189 main activities are focused on the definition of requirements and qualification procedures for ESCOs and on the development of a European Standard on the "Energy Management System”. The inaugural meeting of this Task Force took place in November 2006.

The new EN 50464-1 Standard on three-phase oil-immersed distribution transformers 50 Hz, covering transformers up to 36 kV with power from 50 kVA to 2 500 kVA intended for indoor or outdoor continuous service introduced some remarkable new prescriptions on losses and efficiency according to a specific request by the European Commission.
In particular, for transformers with voltage up to 24 kV, Chapter 3.8, dedicated to losses and sound power levels it introduces new high efficency classes related to load and no load losses.

Table 2, dedicated to load losses, introduces a new high efficiency class increasing the total class number to four, and a new classification scheme for transformers similar to domestic appliances classification (A_k, B_k, C_k, D_k classes) where more efficient transformers are labelled as A_k class (old classification scheme, A, B, C had most efficient transformers labelled as C.)

Table 3, dedicated to no load losses, indroduces two new high efficiency classes with the same classification scheme adopted for load losses where new classes are labelled, starting from more efficient transformers, as A₀, B₀, C₀, D₀, E₀.

Classes for transformers with voltage equal to 36kV are different and defined in tables 4 and 5. For these transformers three classes are defined: (A_k36, B_k36, C_k36 for load losses and A₀₃₆, B₀₃₆, C0₃₆ for no load losses.)

The Mannheim tram operator has completed four years of trials with double-layer capacitors to store regenerated braking energy.

Long-term results showed that the tram's traction power consumption was reduced by 30%. Overall power needs including doors, air-conditioning and lighting were cut by a total of 20%, and the long-term reliability of the technology has now been demonstrated. The capacitors also enabled the vehicle to run with its pantograph lowered, and during testing the 1 kW/h capacitor unit was able to power the tram over 500 m making multiple stops.

Read the full article.

News by courtesy of R. Revelli

A publication by IEC, summarising the international standards work carried out by IEC technical committees and emphasising future directions in the field of efficiency in energy distribution and transmission, contains a reference to the Leonardo ENERGY community on page 14:

"According to the Leonardo ENERGY website, which is the global community for sustainable energy  professionals: “The worldwide electricity savings’ potential of switching to high efficiency transformers is estimated to be 200 TWh. This savings potential is not only technically advantageous, but also brings economic and environmental benefits. Taking the full life cycle cost into account, selecting high efficiency transformers is often an economically sound investment decision despite their higher purchase price.”"

This report presents the interim results of the international project Efficient Servers which is conducted within the EU programme Intelligent Energy Europe.

The project’s central objective is to support the market development for energy efficient servers thereby exploiting energy and cost saving potentials. In the first project phase, the European market for servers, the server energy consumption and energy saving potentials were analysed.

The annual electric power consumption of servers in EU-27 was calculated based on market data from IDC and energy consumption data for the most popular server models provided by manufacturers.

Electric power consumption in Western Europe (EU 15 plus Switzerland) in 2006 amounted to 14,7 TWh for servers and 36,9 TWh for data centres including storage, network components and infrastructure (cooling, UPS, lighting). The number of servers installed was 6,77 Mio units. The Eastern European countries only account for 7 % of the total EU-27  electric power consumption of servers. The total electric power consumption of data centres in EU-27 is close to 40 TWh.

Moderate measures to support energy efficiency of servers and server infrastructure could help to reduce the energy demand significantly. Annual energy consumption in data centres could be reduced by about 25% by 2011. An application of forced measures would allow annual energy savings of 50-60% and cost savings of up to 5,5 billion €. 

More information, as well as the complete reports, are available at the project website. 

The World Energy Congress organised in Rome, Italy (11-15 November  2007) included a session on the role of International Standards, in collaboration with the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

It provided an overview of the key role that International Standards can play in supporting the development and promotion of energy efficiency and renewable energy sources.

International Standards were recognised as part of the solution to today’s energy issues for the following reasons:

• they help avoid unnecessary technical barriers to trade which might result from national and regional policies
• they are essential for creating global markets for efficient energy technologies and for disseminating good energy management practice
• they provide common metrics for defining and measuring energy performance so that investment decisions and incentives may be targeted to encourage energy efficiency
• they support scientific cooperation and the harmonization of public policies.

Paul Waide, from the International Energy Agency (IEA), presented a joint  IEA-ISO Position Paper on the issue, which was used as background material for the 2007 G8 Meeting.

The ISO Secretary-General, Alan Bryden, and the IEC President, Renzo Tani, outlined the work their organisations are doing in order to promote the goal of a sustainable energy future in this interdependent world.

Based on a Discussion Webinar, Friday 29 February 2008

The EU's Energy End-use Efficiency and Energy Services Directive came into force in April 2006. The directive prescribes that all Member States should present a series of National Action Plans of which the first one was due for June 2007. These 27 action plans produce for the first time a European panorama on the energy efficiency sector, as well as a full compendium of measures used or planned by member states.

What are the main ideas contained in the first series of action plans? Which countries lead and which are lagging behind? Do Member States have sufficient qualified people to implement the proposed measures? And, more generally, is there still enough savings potential left to reach the EU energy savings targets of 20% by 2020, or is the energy efficiency well “running dry”?

These and other questions were addressed on a Discussion Webinar on 29 February 2008. The following are a few of the major points arising from that discussion.

1) The National Action Plans

A first, painful conclusion is that nearly all Member States missed the deadline for submitting their National Action Plan (NAP). Only the UK and Finland had their NAP ready by June 30, 2007. Even today there are still a few NAPs to be finalized.

The fact that even this first deadline was not achieved by many Member States is expected to have a snowball effect on the rest of the planning cycle. In the second and the third NAP, Member States must include an evaluation and analysis of the achievements of the measures proposed in their first NAP.

Leonardo ENERGY is participating in the Energy Efficiency Watch, an initiative by the EU Parliament to monitor the quality of the NAPs independently from the Commission. It aims for a quick assessment based on best practices and checklists of what should be included. Some Action Plans are well established and set ambitious goals. Good examples include the NAPs of UK, Austria, and Denmark, Romania and Poland.

One participant put the Polish NAP into perspective, saying that it sounds very nice indeed, but does not promise anything concrete and lacks real commitment.

2) Mandatory or non-mandatory targets?

Some confusion exists as to whether the targets of the Energy Services Directive (- 1% energy end-use per year in the next 9 years) are mandatory or not. In fact, it is only mandatory for the Member States to make effort in order to reach the targets, the number itself has no binding force. The target of the EU's Energy Efficiency Action Plan of -20% by 2020 is not mandatory at all, in contrast to the CO2 and renewable energy targets.

But after all, it is not that important whether a target is mandatory or not. If a mandatory target does not have real enforcement mechanisms, the difference with a non-mandatory target is purely cosmetic.

3) Is there still enough savings potential left?

Energy efficiency is widely believed to have great potential, but is that still true after more than 30 years of energy saving efforts in Europe? There seems to be an eternal 20 to 30% technical savings potential in Europe. How can that be? There are probably three main reasons for this: technological development, the increase in energy end-use, and the relative inefficiency of Eastern European countries.

A participant pointed out that a large part of the remaining energy savings potential requires a change in mentality.

4) The human factor

But will energy efficiency ever really happen, if it depends entirely on human behaviour? We cannot even be moved to switch off lights.

Three possible action points are:

• automation of what now depends on human behaviour

• education and training to change human mentality

• mandatory standards to force a behavioural change

But both automation and overly restrictive legislation can also turn out to be counter productive. An example is a building in which automatic lighting control is installed because it is required by regulations, but the regulation fails to describe the control mechanism, and lights are left on too long in a sparsely used area.

5) Education is key

Education, training, certification and quality control are clearly key factors for a successful energy savings programme, but are there enough qualified people available to initiate such programmes? Even at the highest levels, there seems to be a lack of qualified staff. Some Member States have difficulties with finding the right people for their National Energy Agency, and even the Commission itself is said to be understaffed.

In some countries, like France, the energy services market is controlled by a very limited number of players. This prevents a large group of energy auditors from being trained, representing a real barrier for the widespread deployment of energy efficiency.

Here, National or Local Energy Agencies play an important "advisory" role but, again, having no response capacity to all the information requests.

6) Various definitions of “comfort”

If so much depends on the right mentality of the people in the field, should we forget about ambitious energy savings targets?

One participant made the suggestion that the only thing people really want is comfort. Where energy efficiency is not really improving comfort, it is never going to happen at large scale. Fortunately, comfort and energy efficiency often go together.

On the other hand, comfort can also be understood as good air quality (or health) deriving from clean energy use or reduced air pollutant emissions through energy efficiency.

7) CO2 saving in transport

A final issue raised was the energy savings in the transport sector. The efforts on this domain remain very limited compared to other large energy consuming sectors. Most countries have implemented a number of widely varying, uncoordinated measures on this domain. Examples include differential taxation of vehicles, eco-driving training, public sector fleet management, and traffic management. None of these measures, however, have the potential to make a major impact on the overall energy consumption of this sector, and a more integrated view is needed.

Motor driven systems account for approximately 50% of the electricity consumed in Europe.

This kind of device is always characterised by a high efficiency, but considering the large amount of energy consumption, it’s evident how even a small efficiency improvement can lead to relevant energy savings.

In spite of the huge energy savings opportunities, recent market research carried out in several countries pointed out that in European industry, efficient motors and motor systems are far from having a significant quota in today's operating equipment.

The article contains a detailed summary on energy efficient motor system market penetration in Europe.

By Dragomir Vasic

In this reader article, Dragomir Vasic introduces a basic technique of frequency regulation for preparing the fuel-air mixture in hot water boilers used for district heating. This simple and relatively low-cost measure saves 25,000 euro per year, with a payback of just 0.6 years.

With such compelling economics, one would expect most old boilers to be retrofit in this way, but according to Dragomir, this is often not the case. It's often easier to charge customers for high losses rather than to engineer change.

An energy service company would be a solution, bringing in specialised expertise to facilitate the project. But it's often a barrier to companies to open up their operations, and expose their inefficiencies to a 3rd party.