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About Sustainable Energy Blog
Sustainable Energy Blog was launched in July 2005, and is Leonardo ENERGY's longest running blog, covering technology, policy, finance, roadmaps, actors, ...
Energy Efficiency
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xxxxxx | Energy efficiency is said to be "the cheapest form of energy we can get" and a great opportunity towards sustainability and environmental protection. Efficient and clean technology is many times available and needs to be leveraged. The objective of this project is to allow easy access to knowledge and to facilitate the development of new initiatives developing, delivering or promoting energy efficient technology. |
Vattenfall presents the free lunch
Submitted by Hans Nilsson on Mon, 2007-01-22 08:00.
A suppliers paradigm-shift?
Negative marginal costs for energy efficiency improvements are no news to most of us. That happens when you calculate all relevant effects of a change and especially those where the change reduces costs for operation and maintenance.
A classic example was presented in Scientific American some 15-20 years ago when EPRI (Clark Gellings) on one side and Rocky Mountain Institute (Amory Lovins) on the other presented marginal cost curves for energy efficiency. Naturally they differed though both presented a potential for cost-efficient improvements.
Vattenfall has now produced a series of documents in which they also claim that the relatively low cost the Sir Nicholas Stern has mentioned to avoid the climate change catastrophe could be even lower. Normally energy supply companies do not want to talk about these demand side resources and far less contribute to their visibility, so essential to creation of a sustainable energy system.
(click image to enlarge)
And this what the original from The Scientific American looked like.
(click image to enlarge)
energy efficiency more expensive than solar???
According to the report, the cost per tonne of CO2 was calculated as follows:
"Calculated as the annual additional operating cost (including depreciation) less potential cost savings (for example from reduced energy consumption) divided by the amount of emissions avoided. This formula means that costs can be negative if the cost savings are considerable. Possible costs for implementing a system to realize the abatement approaches are not included."
This is a correct method, but it is amazing to observe that investment in industrial motor systems - a no-brainer in energy efficiency circles - is deemed more expensive than more renewable technologies, even solar.
a suspicion
Thanks to Jim McConnach for this comment which clarifies a lot:
"I can only assume they have based the motor systems number on replacement costs, not new build. The incremental cost of high efficiency motors for new build would give a much lower cost of energy saving per kWh compared to full cost to replace an existing standard motor with a high efficiency one."