By Fernando Nuno / Published on Wed, 2009-07-08 14:04
The renewable energy industry is one of the fastest growing sectors in Europe thanks to two factors: the supportive political and legal frameworks and the region’s prominent investment in renewable energy research and development.
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By HDK / Published on Mon, 2009-06-08 07:21
Motivated by, inter alia, the increasing energy prices, the security of energy supply and climate change, the new EU ”Action Plan for Energy Efficiency: Realising the Potential” (EEAP), sets out the policies and measures required to be implemented over the next six years to achieve the EU’s goal of reducing annual primary energy consumption by about 20 % by 2020. By increasing energy efficiency, the security of energy supply and the reduction of carbon emissions are also improved.
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By HDK / Published on Mon, 2009-06-08 07:14
The Green Paper on Energy Efficiency introduces an additional energy saving target of 20 % until 2020. At the same time, the Dutch parliament demands an overall speed of energy saving of 2 % a year until 2020. Both targets imply an ambitious increase in saving efforts. This paper focuses on the Dutch residential and services sectors. It includes an inventory of technical and behavioural saving measures that may contribute to energy savings by reducing heat and electricity demand or by increasing conversion efficiency.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Tue, 2009-03-17 17:32
Reegle provides information about clean energy policies worldwide
If you are searching for up-to-date information about renewable energy or energy efficiency policies in a particular country, try the Reegle Web site.
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By Angelo Baggini / Published on Thu, 2009-01-08 10:00
Year: 2005
Policy Status: In force
In May 2005, following the Government's Energy Efficiency Strategy, a list of commitments was negotiated between both industry and government.
The Minister for Energy and Minerals, together with the CEOs from 24 major energy users and seven industry associations, signed the Energy Efficiency Accord, voluntarily committing themselves to individually and collaboratively work to implement the government target for energy savings.
Within a framework of eight strategic goals based on the three cornerstones of sustainability, the strategy targets a 15% reduction in final energy demand for the industrial sector by 2015, and a 12% improvement in energy efficiency for the country as a whole by the same date. This target is expressed as a percentage reduction against the projected national energy usage in 2015.
Industry agrees to:
- Promote the development of sector specific strategies and targets that contribute to the achievement of the overall energy efficiency
- Promote the use of Demand Side Management contracts concluded with energy suppliers
- Develop common reporting requirements for energy usage from all energy sources
- Define industry-specific projected energy use in the future, based on Business-asusual (BAU) growth expectations
- Use 2000 as the baseline year against which performance will be measured
- Establish methodologies allowing for the baseline quantification for energy use/intensity various sub sectors, and to take into account the need to measure specific energy intensity rather than absolute energy use in order to promote industrial growth whilst achieving energy efficiency and recognising the energy conservation measures already in use in some sub sectors
- Establish methodologies to take into account increased production, for the pursuit of improved energy efficiency not to hamper industrial growth
- Develop a generic energy auditing protocol that can be adapted for use by the individual sector and company signatories
- Where appropriate, exploit opportunities presented by energy efficiency projects to develop CDM projects
The commitment was reinforced when seven more leaders from companies and business associations joined the initiative and signed the agreement in 2006, with three more signatories joining in 2007.
An Energy Efficiency Technical Committee (EETC) was established to implement the Accord, and the National Business Initiative (NBI) acts as Secretariat to the Technical Committee.
It has developed measurement and verification guidelines, executive guides, an energy management performance matrix, reporting guidelines, and has conducted case studies.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Tue, 2008-12-23 06:30
The EU sticks to its 2020 targets
Will the promises to reduce greenhouse gasses be kept now that the global financial and economic crisis is eating away huge parts of the budget in most EU countries? A positive signal came earlier this month at the European summit. EU leaders confirmed that targets for 2020 will be maintained. That is a clear and encouraging message, although maintaining the targets does not ensure that they will be achieved.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Thu, 2008-11-27 06:30
But use of Kyoto mechanisms and carbon sinks required
There has been a lot of buzz in recent years about the EU-2020 emission reduction targets. So much in fact, that we might quite easily forget that the first Kyoto goal set by the European Union has still not been achieved - the final date for that goal is 2012. This goal was established for the EU-15 and not for the EU-27 as are the 2020 targets. It prescribes an average annual emission level of -8% compared to the base year for the period from 2008 to 2012.
According to a report by the European Environment Agency (EEA), this target could be achieved and even surpassed, but not without the use of Kyoto Mechanisms (KM) and Carbon Sink (CS) activities. This raises the question that if we already have to rely on these 'escape routes' to reach our short term commitment, does that mean we need to be worried about the attainability of the 2020 targets? Or is the use of these mechanisms simply related to teething problems and will the realization of local emission reductions become easier in future years?
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Thu, 2008-07-10 05:30
Feasible if all stakeholders actively co-operate
A new study by Clean Edge concludes that generating 10% of the electricity consumed in the US with solar energy by 2025 is a feasible target. The Utility Solar Assessment (USA) Study has presented utilities, solar companies, and regulators a roadmap of how to reach this target.
Today, solar energy in the US contributes a mere 0.06% of all power generated. Reaching 10% by 2025 would require an active and co-ordinated effort on the part of all stakeholders. The following are the main action points mentioned in the report:
- Utilities should take advantage of solar energy’s ability to generate peak power, and they should implement solar energy as a key element in the build-out of the smart grid
- Solar companies need to bring the cost of a solar installation down to $3 per watt peak by 2018
- Regulators and policy makers should continue the current system of tax credits for solar energy for the foreseeable future
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Thu, 2008-06-12 05:30
Global average around 20%
The success of wind power is usually measured by the growth in installed capacity. This capacity, however, is peak power: the maximum power at optimum wind speed. The average output of a wind turbine is always lower.
The capacity factor of a wind turbine expresses the ratio of average power output to peak power. Many national and European targets assume a capacity factor of around 30%, while the world’s average capacity factor in 2005 was only 19.6%.
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By Angelo Baggini / Published on Wed, 2008-06-11 09:00
Year: 2007
Policy Status: In force
On behalf of the Federal Government, the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) issued a national Energy Efficiency Action Plan in November 2007 following the 2006 EU Directive on energy services and energy end-use efficiency.
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By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Tue, 2008-05-20 09:20
On the 23rd of January, the European Commission launched a proposal for a Directive on promoting the use of renewable energy. The Directive is designed to address all sectors of the renewable energy sector with the goal of reaching a target of 20% of Europe's energy being produced from renewable sources by 2020.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Thu, 2008-02-07 08:30
UK sets example, will California be next?
The UK is taking the lead in sustainable building. In 2007, new housing regulations were agreed upon and go into full force in stages over the upcoming years. The regulations stipulate that from 2016 on, all new homes in the UK will have to be zero-emission for heating, hot water, cooling, ventilation, and lighting. This corresponds to Level 5 of the Code for Sustainable Homes.
The Code for Sustainable Homes is a new standard that gives new homes a 0 to 6 rating based on their performance against nine sustainability criteria. Level 0 is the base level and means the house meets current regulations. Level 1 includes a 10 per cent energy efficiency improvement over current regulations. Level 6 means a zero-carbon emission house for all energy use. The code was introduced as a voluntary standard in April 2007, and will become a mandatory label in April 2008.
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By Hans Nilsson / Published on Mon, 2008-01-21 08:00
The EU package on renewable fuels and climate is advertised for Wednesday January 23rd. The winning Number 20 seems to be secured for energy efficiency improvements, the fraction from renewables and the reductions of GHG. All should be 20% and achieved by the year 2020, but what about Number 10? 10% has been suggested as a target for biofuels in transport, but has been heavily criticised by one of the EU research institutes JRC only recently, as reported in The Financial Times. The critique is broad and deals with price, GHG-emissions, cost over benefit , energy security and employment. All factors said to have either too small positive effects to be significant or, flat out, large negative effects.
Different but expected views
As can be expected, these views are not shared by all. The division in responses largely follows expected lines. Producers of biofuels are sceptical over the criticism while several environmental NGOs find the critique justified.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Thu, 2008-01-10 08:30
How should the 20 per cent renewables target be divided among the member states?
The EU has set two remarkable targets to be reached by 2020: 20 per cent energy saving and 20 per cent renewables in the energy mix. Those targets are remarkable because they were set without specifying in detail what the numbers meant or how they should be achieved. This resulted in two post factum discussions: how much does 1 per cent energy saving mean, and how should the 20 per cent renewables target be divided among the member states?
The latter is currently the subject of a heated debate in which all governments are running for cover. The debate failed to reach a conclusion in December and is postponed to the Commission meeting of 23 January 2008.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Tue, 2007-12-18 08:30
An annual survey
This past year of 2007 was again an eventful one in the world of energy. There were new trends, evolving markets, and important breakthroughs. The following 11 highlights stood out:
1) 4th IPCC Assessment Report
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its 4th Assessment Report. One of its most striking conclusions is that we don’t have to wait for miracles or ingenious new solutions. The technologies, policies, and measures needed to mitigate climate change are known and doable. They just need to be applied.
With this 4th report, the IPCC has confirmed that there is a consensus among experts on what we know about climate change, how serious the earth’s situation may be, and what we can do to mitigate the phenomenon. Its efforts were rewarded with this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, shared with the mediagenic Al Gore.
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By Sergio Ferreira / Published on Wed, 2007-08-01 17:08
Every day, we read in the newspapers, or maybe more in blogs, that renewable projects are breaking more records, lowering costs and producing more energy.
There are a number of examples just from the last day or two:
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