ExpertGate’s Post

Hi Jan Rosenow I find all this argument a little confused. I don’t believe energy efficiency needs a rethink. There are many ways of delivering efficiency improvements and without question there is primacy in applying the efficiency improvement(s) which have the biggest return for effort or £. You appear to be saying that today we value carbon improvements over £ improvements. And that in the future the reverse will be true in a zero carbon energy world. The reverse is actually true today. Any industrial I talk too needs the best economic wins they can find (often efficiency led) and if there are carbon wins, which there almost always are with efficiency led changes, then these are a bonus. A bigger issue that needs a radical rethink is energy pricing along the supply chain. Put wholesale priced electricity in consumers way and then we will see an acceleration toward zero carbon energy.

"Energy efficiency needs a radical rethink. Making fossil fuel technologies & processes incrementally more efficient is no longer enough." This seems to imply that most energy efficiency improvements are occurring in equipment that uses fossil fuels for their energy source, such as gas-fired boilers. But a large portion of equipment is powered by electricity - motors, air conditioning equipment, appliances, computers and other IT equipment are examples.

Incremental improvements in fossil fuel technologies can create a false sense of progress, delaying the transition to truly sustainable solutions. Looking forward to your insights on redefining energy efficiency to align with a cleaner, greener future.

The HVACR cooling sector consumes 25% more electric than needed simply because owners don't do coil cleaning -- fouled coils result from a design flaw where dust/debris-laden air is largely allowed to enter the condenser coil enclosure and foul the coils causing coil fouling which kills the required heat transfer forcing the compressor to keep working when it shouldn't. That alone forces total global electric demand upwards buy ~5%!

For what it's worth, I wrote a fairly radical article on Energy Efficiency back in 2012 for an online publication the European Energy Review. It didn't get much reaction at the time, but I still think that my modelling framework was correct.

pure crap here... The shift toward net zero emissions and changes in energy systems present new challenges for traditional energy efficiency roles. I have to go barf now. Again. normalize to end use. Not Cradle to Grave thinking AKA Grave to Cradle, sink to source. FF electricity for heat --> grave to cradle 10:1 exploration-refining-transport -->3:1 heat to electricity --> 4:3 T&D losses 10*3*4/3--> 40:1 end use energy of fossil fuel for electrical heating. WASTAGE = 40 USAGE = 1 GAIA I am sorry, I am one of us as well. This is simply stupid. WASTAGE Execution becomes trivial. Example, T&D upgrades that save 10% or 20% of T&D losses would remove more wastage than 4 times the end use energy or power, or if 20% reduction, of the example 25% losses, that would be 8 times savings of the end use power or energy used. 8x seems a stretch, more like an upper theoretical limit. But 2X to 5X times the end use doable, and with only removing 1/2 the losses. But this cannot compete with end use sourcing, storage and loading. Because it cuts all those losses out of the multiply chain. GAIA's Stupid WASTAGE Executioner, if you will, 11-23-2024

Le problème se pose quand même de passer les pointes de consommation l´hiver la nuit quand le vent ne souffle pas ou le jour quand il y a beaucoup de nuages et peu de soleil. Ce n´est pas le cas de tous les pays, mais ça l´est des pays tempérés comme l´Europe. Il est bien possible que nous soyons obligés de réduire nos productions industrielles notamment en hiver, pour nous satisfaire d´une faible production électrique. Cela tombe bien, que les produits de la transition (voitures électriques, pompes à chaleur, panneaux solaires) ont une longue durée de vie, ce qui nous permettra de ne plus avoir à produire en permanence des biens et de concentrer leur production sur les périodes à fort ensoleillement

Damn, Bill, I didn't know you are an artist. Love the image.

According to Agora Think Tanks (2024): Klimaneutrales Deutschland. Von der Zielsetzung zur Umsetzung the coefficient of performance of electrification for the whole buildings sector is only 1,8 (226 TWh ambient heat plus 283 TWh electric energy divided by 283 TWh). It will be better with more solar thermal energy. Much more compared to the ridiculously low estimate in the Agora report.

Do you agree, that we can even waste green energy / green electric… energy efficiency in any form should be No1 on everyone’s list during supply or demand side decarbonisation as eventually it will come back to cost, less energy used less cost spent.