This week, the International Energy Agency published its 2012 version of its World Energy Outlook. There was considerable attention given to energy efficiency. It is instructive to read some excerpts on energy efficiency from the executive summary.
Our Efficient World Scenario shows how tackling the barriers to energy efficiency investment can unleash this potential and realise huge gains for energy security, economic growth and the environment. These gains are not based on achieving any major or unexpected technological breakthroughs, but just on taking actions to remove the barriers obstructing the implementation of energy efficiency measures that are economically viable. Successful action to this effect would have a major impact on global energy and climate trends, compared with the New Policies Scenario. The growth in global primary energy demand to 2035 would be halved. Oil demand would peak just before 2020 and would be almost 13 mb/d lower by 2035, a reduction equal to the current production of Russia and Norway combined, easing the pressure for new discoveries and development. Additional investment of $11.8 trillion (in year-2011 dollars) in more energy-efficient technologies would be more than offset by reduced fuel expenditures. The accrued resources would facilitate a gradual reorientation of the global economy, boosting cumulative economic output to 2035 by $18 trillion, with the biggest gross domestic product (GDP) gains in India, China, the United States and Europe. Universal access to modern energy would be easier to achieve and air quality improved, as emissions of local pollutants fall sharply. Energy related carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions would peak before 2020, with a decline thereafter consistent with a long-term temperature increase of 3 °C.
We propose policy principles that can turn the Efficient World Scenario into reality. Although the specific steps will vary by country and by sector, there are six broad areas that need to be addressed. Energy efficiency needs to be made clearly visible, by strengthening the measurement and disclosure of its economic gains. The profile of energy efficiency needs to be raised, so that efficiency concerns are integrated into decision making throughout government, industry and society. Policy makers need to improve the affordability of energy efficiency, by creating and supporting business models, financing vehicles and incentives to ensure that investors reap an appropriate share of the rewards. By deploying a mix of regulations to discourage the least-efficient approaches and incentives to deploy the most efficient, governments can help push energy-efficient technologies into the mainstream.
Monitoring, verification and enforcement activities are essential to realise expected energy savings. These steps would need to be underpinned by greater investment in energy efficiency governance and administrative capacity at all levels.
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Successive editions of this report have shown that the climate goal of limiting warming to 2 °C is becoming more difficult and more costly with each year that passes. Our 450 Scenario examines the actions necessary to achieve this goal and finds that almost four-fifths of the CO2 emissions allowable by 2035 are already locked-in by existing power plants, factories, buildings, etc. If action to reduce CO2 emissions is not taken before 2017, all the allowable CO2 emissions would be locked-in by energy infrastructure existing at that time. Rapid deployment of energy-efficient technologies – as in our Efficient World Scenario – would postpone this complete lock-in to 2022, buying time to secure a much needed global agreement to cut greenhouse-gas emissions.
On November 21st, the eceee will hold a policy seminar in Brussels entitled, The Challenge of the IEA World Energy Outlook: European policies and measures to deliver the needed efficiency improvements. More information is available here.
Energy in Demand - Sustainable Energy - Rod Janssen 