Sustainable Energy Blog

Or is it a tool used for generating energy savings?

In the eighties and the nineties, the energy consumption of ICT appliances was not an issue. At that time, it appeared to be miniscule in comparison to other energy consumption. In recent years however, this has changed dramatically. The ICT sector has matured and today’s huge server rooms can hardly be called minor energy users. Moreover, rising energy prices and climate change concerns have raised awareness over small consumers such as the stand by losses of communication appliances and PCs. As a result of this, the ICT sector is increasingly criticized for its steeply rising energy consumption.

It is a fact that the carbon footprint of the ICT sector has been rising and is now estimated to be 2% of global emissions. But the ICT sector can’t be viewed separately from the rest of the economy. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) has recently published a study ('Information and Communication Technologies: The Power of Productivity') stating that the innovative effects of ICT have contributed to an economy-wide reduction of the energy intensity in the U.S.

Emissions of nitrogen oxides (NO_x) and sulphur dioxide (SO₂) from large combustion plants (LCP) could have been considerably lower in 2004, a report presented today by the European Environment Agency says.

Power plants burning coal, oil and/or gas are significant contributors to European emissions of NO_x and SO₂ — two important acidifying pollutants. Improving the environmental performance of LCPs by applying the best available techniques could have reduced NO_x emissions by up to 59 % and SO₂ emissions by as much as 80 % in 2004, the report says.

Nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide emissions could have been 20 % and 61 % lower respectively if the facilities had met the emission limits set in the LCP Directive, whose purpose is to reduce emissions of acidifying pollutants, particles, and ozone precursors.

The report Air pollution from electricity-generating large combustion plants is based on data from 450 electricity-generating LCPs across EU-25 in 2004. The LCPs covered by the report account for more than 70 % of the emissions of NO_x and SO₂ from this sector and are included in the European Pollutant Emission Register (EPER).

Combustion facilities in EU-25 amount to 54 % and 18 % of the reported SO₂ and NO_x emissions respectively.

For a long time, the dominanting has been that taking action against climate change is a risky business for a country and its industry, an idea underpinned by some economic thinking saying that unilateral action is at best useless and that policy measures must be strictly targeted. One problem requires one measure only, otherwise, measures will be diluted and even counterproductive. Nowadays, both politicians and their advisors have a different tune. Actions may not be as costly, early actions may give an advantage and policies may be mutually supportive. Could it be the Stern Review that has turned into a Stern Tsunami?

President Barroso announced an interesting shift in the Chinese attitude to the post-Kyoto agreement when visiting Beijing last week. The Chinese premier Wen Jiabao is said to have indicated that China could participate fully in an international agreement provided that the old industrialised nations promised to reduce their emission until 2020 and a financial mechanism for technology transfer is established.

If the Chinese really will be a full and acting participant in a future international solution with mutual binding targets, it is hard to imagine that the other giant, India, will stay out. The concerns are the same, not to be left with a commitment that no one else honours, and awareness about needs and actions is high.

It will then just leave us with the U.S., but the deck of cards will soon shift.

Not only climate

The EU-delegation, however, also discussed other issues, including the topical ones about the Olympics, Tibet and Human Rights. It is said that it is important for Chinese not to lose face and, if one can trust the press release, it seems as if President Barroso and the team of commissioners have managed quite well in showing both respect and profound will.

A matter of growing concern is the Chinese presence in Africa and an EU-China-Africa partnership in development cooperation was initiated. Such co-operation might be interesting since the reports of Chinese activities are a bit disturbing. Will the new co-operation mean that there will be less arms trade and less exploitation of raw materials in vulnerable African states?

Energy efficiency (EE) measures have shorter payback periods than generally assumed

Many energy efficiency (EE) measures in industry consist of improving purchasing and maintenance practices and procedures. These measures often have positive implications other than just energy savings. They can also reduce maintenance costs and increase the productivity of the site. These ancillary savings are often forgotten when calculating the payback rate of EE measures. In reality, EE measures often have significantly shorter payback periods than previously assumed. This is the principal conclusion of a recent study by the U.S. DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).

EE potential twice as large as generally assumed

The conclusion of the U.S. DOE confirms an earlier finding made in the paper 'Productivity Benefits of Industrial Energy Efficiency Measures', published in Energy 11 in 2003. This paper demonstrated a strong correlation between EE measures and productivity. Systematically taking into account the productivity benefits when calculating the payback period would actually double the potential of cost-efficient EE improvements, according to this paper.

In just two months time (July 7-9) there will be a G8-summit in Hokkaido under the Japanese chairmanship. A month earlier there will be a preparatory meeting on energy. The chairing country have made their homework thoroughly and it looks all set for a decisive step in preparation for the post-Kyoto agreement. But still it could be more productive to hesitate and even to postpone the decisions!

The reason is the (not so) United States

President Bush addressed the climate issues only last week in a statement that was a master-piece of empty rhetoric and were the only informative part was that the US should slow down emissions to a peak at 2025! When most other industrialised countries have at least plans for a substantial reduction by 2020. Small wonder that the German minister for environment called it a “Neanderthal speech”. He even went on and said that the US attitude is that of a "losership" not a leadership! If this US attitude should direct the decisions made in the Hokkaido summit there is not much hope for real actions.

Mr Bush in his speech referred to his French counterpart Sarkozy as "his friend". That might be the case, but also president Sarkozy has in a laconic statement dismissed the US move and asked that they should take on real targets of reduction.

But then of course we still do not know what the next US administration think and we can hardly find out before November. John McCain does not seem to have much in the bag either. On the contrary, his motion to have a summer rebate on petrol in the US does not seem to reveal that he know or care about what is at stake for the climate.

On the other political side in the US the Clinton-Obama race is on. True that they have both shown much more consideration for climate and global issues, but how much of that will hold in a fierce campaign when (quite naturally) most debate will focus on individual “wallet-issues”?Basically the US is not so united but which route it will take after the elections is just not known. Would it not be better for the G8-summit to gamble for a more favourable political climate (!) six months later and play for a temporary deal in July?

By D Nchelatebe Nkwetta et al

Sub-Saharan African countries are today confronted with the problem of urban and demographic growths thus needing to reach a sustainable rate of positive economic growth. In order to meet this sustainability, many reforms are being carried out among which is the energy sector which will lead to future energy supply in an open globalised energy market as well as providing the basic energy needs.

One of such methods involves the use of distributed generation (DG) which is always located closed to consumption points for rapid electrification. However, the use of DG involves the need of a stable network which most often is lacking in Sub-Saharan African countries thus growing concern of DG on their loosely integrated grids.

Lack of understanding of terminology and technology

Consumers are aware that they could do more in terms of energy conservation and efficiency. However, they almost always lack the necessary knowledge on the subject to know which actions are appropriate to take. This includes even the most basic terminology; often it is not properly understood. Moreover, consumers generally perceive green technology as expensive, ugly, and hard to use. These are the main conclusions of the first two EcoPinion surveys conducted by Ecoalign.

Ecoalign is a U.S. strategic marketing agency with a mission to align consumer behaviour with energy and environmental needs. In recent months, they have executed a series of surveys throughout the U.S. mapping the consumer’s view of green energy.

We are now so used to talking about climate change in terms of policy, of technicalities, such as GHG-concentration in PPMs and of technologies/fuels, that we tend to lose sight of the object itself – the physical impact on everyday life. The latest IPCC-report is, however, of great help to understanding this. What will climate change do to me?

Talking about environmental benefits in times of scepticism

Marketing and environmental protection are two seemingly very different worlds. But they can profit from each other. A good marketing campaign can boost the sales of environmentally friendly products and more generally increase the environmental behaviour of consumers. Conversely, environmentally friendly products can engage consumers on an emotional level, which is a dream for every marketer.

Unfortunately, the latter has stimulated marketers into developing 'greenwashing' messages which are misleading consumers by exaggerating the environmental advantages of a certain product or service. This is often easy to do, given the difficulty in understanding all of the complexities involved in identifying the actual environmental burden of a product and the ignorance of many consumers in this field.

On the longer term however, such greenwashing can seriously harm the credibility of products since consumers are often more sensible than marketers think. Geenwashing can also affect the credibility of environmental protection in general as well as of green marketing messaging - more and more consumers see it as nothing more than a way to mislead the buyer. The final result is a general increase in cynicism regarding all things environmental.

This Monday, Friends of Europe and Shell presented the “Shell Energy Scenarios to 2050”.

The document is part of a long tradition by Shell of developing scenarios on energy production and use not intending to be forecasts, but rather efforts to understand the different development paths that can be followed.

This year two scenarios are proposed, Scramble and Blueprints, highlighting two different ways the world may deal with the three unavoidable truths about the future of energy: the surge in energy demand, the end of easily accessible oil, and increasing environmental stresses.

Scramble reflects the dynamics behind energy security. The focus naturally falls on the supply side with the negotiation of bilateral agreements and incentives for local resource development. The growth in coal and biofuels is particularly significant. Actions addressing climate change and encouraging energy efficiency are pushed into the future and demand side policy is not pursued meaningfully. Environmental policy is not seriously addressed until major climate events stimulate political response. Initial strong economic growth is followed by strong slowdown due to energy price spikes and volatility. Atmospheric CO^₂ growth is moderated by the end of the period, but is the result of a longterm high growth path.

Read more.

The quote is from none other than Mahatma Gandhi, who was in turn quoted by the IPCC-chair, Rajendra Pachauri, when he received the Nobel Peace Prize last year. In the past, the statement might have been overlooked as being a somewhat idealistic point of view, but in the light of climate change, the truth becomes very evident. The question, however, is what sort of conclusion we have to draw and what the lessons to be learned are.

A clever tool to provide electricity for anybody anywhere

Engineers tend to see things big. So much so that they sometimes forget that the biggest impact can often be achieved by seeing things small and simple. This tendency to opt for the big certainly doesn’t hold for Colin Bulthaup, founder of Potenco. The mission of his company is huge: making clean power universally available and immediately useful anywhere and everywhere in the world. His solution is surprisingly small: a pull-cord generator the size of a yoyo that can safely power rechargeable batteries and provide energy for applications such as lighting, cell phones, or water purifiers.

Having travelled in Northwestern India for two weeks in a climate that is blisteringly hot for a person from northern Europe, there are many thoughts that become disturbingly pressing and are related to climate (change). Some of them have to do with lifestyle. Just seeing the TV commercials for SUVs, then comparing them with a look at the streets shows a wide gap between what we have, and what we want.

The TV ads show a man driving an SUV through the terrain in a water landscape, chased by two beautiful women on Jet-skis! The message is about affluence beyond imagination. The reality on the streets is different. Frequent black-outs every evening from a grid where you cannot really tell if the poles support the lines or just hang in them. Overcrowded buses and motor-rickshaws held together with tape and wire.

The TV ad inspired from the life in industrialised countries does not match with a sustainable future, neither for India, nor for us.

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

An educational project at Little Chico Creek Elementary School

The environmental benefits of solar energy are obvious. Less talked about however are the psychological and educational advantages of producing electricity in such an easy and direct manner. For many people who have installed their own PV panels, it is a real pleasure to monitor how much solar energy they are harvesting. It can also be an opportunity for them to learn about the differences between energy and power, DC and AC power, voltage and current.

These advantages did not pass unnoticed at Little Chico Creek Elementary School in California. The school dedicated a part of their website to demonstrating the performance of its PV system.

Consulting the output on line

Little Chico Creek Elementary School has had a 125 kW DC PV system in operation on its roof since 14 June 2006. The AC output power of their system can be consulted online on their website. Graphs show the evolution of the output over the day, the week, the month, etc. On a more detailed page, the evolution of the voltage and current values of the system are shown. The site also publishes environmental parameters like the ambient temperature, the cell temperature, and the sun irradiance power. Finally, it shows the amount of CO2 and NOx emissions that have been avoided by employing the PV panels compared with a standard energy system.

Not all ways of being passive are bad. One of them, however, is. Belgium and the United Kingdom will now have to defend their passivity in implementing the buildings directivein court. So, the commissioner seems to act according to the old rule for successful governance. He carries a smile (in his new blog) and a big stick (to make sure that perpetrators understand that the commission means business.)

The passivity mode that is easier to defend is that of building passive houses.EuroAce has made a survey of the EU-situation as regards strategies for passive houses (or rather low energy buildings) across the members and found quite a variety in guidelines and attitudes.Many of the activities are driven by NGOs, but it is obvious that there is a substantial interest

There are two web-sites were it is possible to follow the implementation processes for the directive.

http://www.buildingsplatform.eu/cms/index.php?id=7&no_cache=1 and http://www.epbd-ca.org/

The one called the buildings platform also has a newsletter in which there is also information that goes beyond the directive itself e.g. on passive buildings.

A detailed analysis by the Technical Research Centre of Finland

One of the major drawbacks of wind energy is that it requires extra reserve capacity to compensate for the intermittency of its power output. Opponents of wind energy even contend that it requires a 100% back up: they claim each megawatt of wind power would require a megawatt from a combined cycle power plant as a standby. A study by the Technical Research Centre of Finland has now demonstrated this last claim to be incorrect.

Size matters

The study 'Design and operation of power systems with large amounts of wind power' was commissioned by the International Energy Agency (IEA) for its Wind Implementing Agreement, and resulted in a state-of-the-art report. It shows that the amount of back up needed for wind energy varies greatly according to the systems’ characteristics. The size of the system and the correlation of wind production with peak demand are two major and decisive factors.

A new survey issued in the Eurobarometer investigates the attitudes of the Europeans to the environment. The survey is interesting and encouraging reading. The Europeans are distinctly prepared to rise to their responsibility towards environment and climate, and for a sustainable future. Not less than two thirds say that they consider that environmental protection to be prior to competitiveness in the industry. There is of course differences between the nations, but not as much as one could expect.

The conclusion drawn from this (and other) questions by the Eurobarometer is that the global nature of the environmental problems have permeated the Europeans. A fair conclusion since there is a consistency with the responses this time and a similar study made 4 years ago.

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.