Improving energy efficiency has much to do with communication — Highlights from the World Sustainable Energy Days Conference

By Philippa Martin-King

The following is an overview of comments made by representatives from industry at the World Sustainable Energy Days 2008 conference in Austria on 5-7 March. The annual conference centres on the sustainable and efficient production and use of energy for buildings, industry and transport. Begun in 2004, it gathers experts and decision makers from all over the world. This year there were some 950 attendees from 61 countries. Speakers hailed from Asia, including China and India, the Americas and Europe.

The organizer was O.Ö. Energiesparverband, an Austrian non-profit organization whose 31 members include energy suppliers and consultancies, environmental groups, professional associations, firms involved in energy technology and the Upper Austrian government. It provides energy information and public awareness advice and carries out energy audits. At the same time, it is a member of various European projects, a member of FEDARENE, the EUFORES and the OPET network.

The consensus of the conference was that legislation alone would do little to alleviate climate change. Mandating energy efficiency might even, in some cases, have the opposite effect and turn people against best practices.

Experts expressed a need for more education about technologies and concepts and greater market interoperability. A majority of people are, they said, still largely ignorant about many technologies and concepts or, when they have good knowledge of one area, they may know nothing of another, which makes them almost incapable of advising others on the global picture of energy efficiency. For example, people often confuse halogen lamps with compact fluorescent lights (CFL). Having added insulation to their houses they then allow the general temperature of their heating to rise or they might leave electrical devices on permanent stand-by. When they upgrade their houses or purchase specific systems, they may have nothing that would allow them to compare devices and make educated decisions. Often, they have to rely on more-or-less informed sales staff and product availability for their purchases.

The experts agreed that what was needed at all levels – from the government minister, the corporate purchaser and the shop assistant to the utility installer, the man in the street and the child – was knowledge and education together with relevant comparison tables that would provide a global picture of energy from conception of products to use and final disposal.

The main topics of this year's Sustainable Energy programme included:

• Renewable heating and cooling:
• Energy-efficient procurement:
• Energy efficiency with specific sessions on electricity efficiency and lighting.

Heating and cooling systems – the largest consumers of energy

Kristin Seyboth of the International Energy Agency pointed out that heating and cooling accounts for 40-50 % of global consumer energy demand per year, yet that there are far fewer policies to encourage technology developments and deployment of renewables specific to heating and cooling than for generating renewable electricity and improving overall electricity efficiency.

This was reinforced by Jean H. Lausten, also of the IEA, who said: "Forty per cent of energy use in the world goes to buildings, whether it's for heating, cooling or hot water. There's a huge gap between existing possibilities and what is actually done. It's the market's biggest failure. But, if we hadn't had energy savings we'd have used 56 % more."

John Goodall of the European Construction Industry Federation pointed out: "Ninety-eight per cent of all industries involved in housing construction work are microfirms. However, to achieve a reverse of energy use we need to change the driving forces, stop taxing the renovation of buildings with VAT (valued added tax) and make certification voluntary but linked to a fiscal measure. Instead of decreasing energy costs as consumption increases, we should levy higher taxes for those who consume the most. And, to take account of the changing work force in Europe, particularly in view of the present influx of Eastern European workers who have little knowledge of energy matters, there is an urgent need for increased training to create the necessary awareness."

Andrew Warren of EuroACE, the alliance of companies that are involved in the energy efficiency of buildings, said, "When it comes to improving buildings in terms of energy efficiency, there's no point in only looking at buildings of a certain size to bring them up to standard. We should be looking at covering all of them, not just the large ones, and we need to include both domestic and non-domestic ones.

"Creating awareness is only one side of the story. If you don't facilitate change, you're just going to create anxiety, and that's not beneficial to anyone. But, in order to create that climate, people need advice on combining technologies so that they have a much better overall picture. That's the only way we can achieve behavioural changes successfully."

2006 European solar thermal energy market.

Raffaele Piria, of the European Solar Thermal Industry Federation, said that 90 % of talk is about electricity and that there is little awareness of such complementary renewable energy solutions as solar thermal, in addition to wind and photovoltaics. "While we're a bit late in terms of climate change, we do have some good products available. But we've forgotten about marketing them. If we want to sell them, we have to talk about them. That means informing the press so that they have something to write about!

"We need a market with interconnections and integrated sections that have a long-term strategy that will fit them all together. Biomass and heat pumps on their own are going to consume a lot of energy, so we could do with some solar installations too."

Mark Joenje, who works for Ecofys, a Netherlands renewable energy services consultancy, pointed out that the barriers that prevent faster advances are due to the energy sector’s conservativeness and traditional organization.

"It needs a different, integrated approach and a fundamental change to the organization and finance strategy in order to cover costs" he said. “What we need is action at different levels, not just in R&D (research and development), but also in the thinking to put technologies into place practically. If you have high investment costs and long pay-off times, it's simply not stimulating. Normally you try to minimize your investment costs, so we need to look at the life cycle, also involving different, smaller parties. Then the government can also help by making a legal framework that will stimulate market development."

Branka Jelavić of the Energy Institute Hrvoje Požar, in Croatia said that heating and cooling is receiving less attention than other sectors because on one hand it's sophisticated and on the other, composed of many small individuals who are highly traditional. Since their activity is varied and covers a multitude of purposes, the technical issues differ tremendously. The geographical coverage of natural resources adds further to the complexity.

"We need renewable energy strategies that provide a legislative framework with obligatory targets combined with good support measures,” she said. “That requires spatial planning. Often this isn't included. At the same time it's important to include environmental issues, to respect nature with a mind to the future. That implies drawing up licensing and permits together with relevant financing. Here, development is only at the very beginning."

Volker Kienzlen of KEA, the German climate and energy agency, spoke of the renewable heating law in Baden-Württemberg that is about to come into force. "In three weeks time 20 % of the energy in new buildings must be produced by solar panels or heat pumps, or other renewable bio-energetic means such as pellets or biogas. By 2010, that figure will include older buildings where 10 % of the heating will by law have to be produced by renewable energies."

One of the areas often neglected in energy strategies is that of renewable heating and cooling in the social housing sector. Renewable energies are particularly important for this non-for-profit area to curb energy costs and maintain prices as low as possible.

Sorcha Edwards, of CECODHAS, the European Liaison Committee for Social Housing, the Brussels-based organisation that is supervising 21 million homes among its 46 members, said that "growing utility bills are creating a will and the potential to trigger energy transition." However, she pointed out that in the construction sector changes are slow to take off.

"Social housing systems have failed in a way, largely because there's no pay back from any investments made,” she said. “We can't afford to change our rents, so we need to find other means of cutting down costs. Although it's very difficult to invoice servicing, it's equally difficult to feed back energy to the grid, so when we do manage to encourage investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy projects, we have to find other methods for selling back any surplus energy we've produced back to the grid.

"There's a real shortage of technical knowledge about energy efficiency where architects, engineers and operating technicians are concerned. At the same time, there's a pretty low interest among our tenants. We'd really like to see training sessions set up for professionals and information campaigns for tenants and the local housing associations to overcome the shortages and lack of information that's available at present."

The Marstal district heating project with its
present 19 km2 of solar panels is the largest
in the world.

Birger Lauersen of the Danish District Heating Association, talked of the Marstal District Heating project. “With its 19 square kilometres of solar panels,” he said, "The Marstal project is the largest in the world, and there's another 116 square metres to come! District heating is one of the infrastructures where we can improve the share of renewable energies. But, due to the proliferation of cheap solar energy, 60 % of house dwellers in Denmark don't pay much attention to the talk on increased heating costs because their prices haven't gone up much in the last few years. Statistics show that we waste more energy than we actually consume. If you look at Iceland, 92 % of the country is covered by geothermal district heating."

Daniel Frering of the Lighting Research Centre at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute said, "Few buildings use daylight usefully and save energy at the same time. We've proved that occupants feel better about themselves if they have daylight, but ensuring daylight in a building costs more in terms of both design and the technologies used.”

Procurement is rarely well informed

Purchasers, whether in the private or public domain, are particularly badly informed about the overall energy picture since they tend to concentrate on achieving the task in hand and ignore the effect that the use of their devices have on consumption of energy, or the cost of disposal at the end of the product life. Labelling, such as the United States’ “Energy Star”, often only accounts for a single aspect of device use or consumption.

Laurenz Hermann of the Berliner Energieagentur said, "There are two different ways of calculating the energy levels with Energy Star labels. For photocopiers or printers, it's often simply a case of an operational mode. The printer is either in sleep or on mode. There's little attention paid to print cycles in looking at an overall calculation of how the printer is used.”

Helmut Lusser, director of Global to Local, said, "The person purchasing the paper is probably not the same as the one buying the printers. How can you make a knowledgeable choice if you don't know the whole picture?"

"The most effective means of printing is to only use electronic devices and not print at all! Simply switching to recycled paper isn't enough. We need to think of different tasks linked together and that's far more difficult.

"Not having to go to work is much cheaper than grouping transport or using individual products such as special tyres. So, why do you drive? Well, you get car allowance! In the same way, we need a systematic approach to procurement. It's important to consider the environmental impact early in writing good product purchasing specifications. We can concentrate on getting rid of the one system that performs 30 % lower rather than looking at increasing the efficiency of all the others by 1 % or 2 %. If we simplify by restricting specifications to two or three criteria, it'll make the whole process a lot easier to understand and have more chance of succeeding. There are so many eco labels that we're in danger of generating a negative reaction."

Milena Presutto of ENEA, Italy, pointed out that there are a vast number of mandatory and voluntary label programmes, including Energy Star and the European A-G energy levels scheme, which is also used in southern America. Energy Star is mostly for office equipment whereas others are more for house appliances.

"If you're going to purchase a washing machine, you should be looking equally at washing performance, drying performance and water consumption,” she said. “Labels are able to help us discriminate products and make better purchases, but there is no global picture. You'll also find many labels for local areas. Take Catalonia for example."

Mark Hidson works for ICLEI, Local Governments for Sustainability, and has been active in setting up Procura+, a sustainable procurement campaign. He said that the equivalent of 14-16 % of European gross domestic product is spent on goods and services by local authorities in Europe every year.

"Local authorities purchase 2.8 million computers annually,” he said. “That's 12 % of the market. With more information they could buy better products and use less energy to save money. There is a need for labelling that meet a variety of criteria in all types of areas. Take public lighting for example. Energy labels are fine, but we need to go further to take account of sustainable procurement needs."

Labelling and tables for informed choices

Many experts are calling for tables where devices are not simply listed in terms of their energy consumption and listed as class A++, A+, A and possibly B, but where guidance is given in terms of suitability. Do appliances fit the task for which they are required? Will they make the best use of energy resources? Will they prove efficient throughout their life cycle? Will there be additional future costs which will increase the overall price? Can equipment be disposed of readily and easily? Is an alternative energy source available to carry out the task in a different manner? Much of this information is available but misunderstood because it is over-technical, not available in the correct language, or supplied only in part with a single focus and no regard for a global context.

Claude Turmes, a member of the European Parliament and Vice President of EUFORES, was critical of general knowledge about energy use. "How many people are aware that the new digital television cell boxes are high consumers of electricity?” he asked. “They consume the equivalent of a fridge in house. Often our electronic gadgets are badly designed. All this talk about simply switching to an alternative energy source is not the solution. It's all a noisy ghost destined to divert our attention, but it's not reality."

Christiane Egger of O.Ö. Energiesparverband, organiser of the conference, summarised the problem of energy efficiency in this way: "There's a mixture of reasons that explain the world's increase in energy consumption. To solve the problem therefore requires a mix of solutions."

"In terms of the individual, the largest increase in household consumption is appliances. We've managed to decrease the amount of energy consumed by a dishwasher by 30 %. But, at the same time, we've increased the number of dishwashers!

“How do we know we're purchasing the right device? We often have to rely on the salesman for advice. That can be influenced by legislative measures curbing electricity consumption, for example, but often it's more a question of product availability, marketing and price. What do we know of the design of an appliance, or its use?"

As related elsewhere in this month's e-tech the IEC is analyzing those of its standards that deal with energy efficiency and renewable energy and identifying areas for future work in energy gains. At the same time, the IEC Strategy Group 1 has already submitted a first series of recommendations to the Standardization Management Board (SMB) which include commercial and domestic lighting, industrial heating and cooling.

Faced with such demands for greater knowledge on energy-efficient devices and how to use energy, communicators could and should have a field day.