Lessons from international and local efforts on energy demand

Alan Pears gives us his round-up of the main energy issues this quarter.

2024 has seen a flurry of useful reports on energy and emissions from the International Energy Agency. Its annual Energy Efficiency report has been complemented by reports on managing increasing variability in energy demand and technology reviews. IEA has also published practical tools including policy toolkits and an efficiency progress tracker (see iea.org to access all these).

As in most other areas of global decarbonisation and energy transition, there is plenty of room for improvement. At COP 28 in 2023, countries agreed to double annual energy efficiency improvement by 2030. IEA reports that this is yet to translate into faster progress. Indeed, the recent annual improvement has been 1 percent, half of the average between 2010 and 2019, despite an increase in investment to US$ 660 billion this year, almost a 50 percent increase since 2019.

IEA tracks trends in regions and across technologies. Outcomes are mixed, but leaders are making strong progress and technology improvements are ramping up. Efficient electrification and fuel switching are strong trends, with demand for some fuels and energy consumption for activities peaking. Energy efficiency has potential to deliver more than a third of energy-related emission reduction by 2030. Important lessons for policy and program design are analysed. Demand flexibility is increasingly important as prices and supply become more variable.

Globally, nearly 10 million people now work in energy efficiency related jobs—but there are serious skill shortages. I must agree with this after my recent painful experiences with aquatic centres and apartment building projects. However, as well as training more people, we need to simplify design of products and systems and associated regulations, so that less-skilled people and householders can do more of the work.

Factory sealed heat pumps
Heat pumps with factory sealed refrigeration systems that can be plugged-into an existing 10 Amp power-point could streamline installation of reverse cycle air conditioners and heat pump hot water services, and reduce emissions from refrigerant leakage. This would avoid the need to work with refrigerants, though regulatory changes and quality control systems would also be needed. Already many commercial installations use factory sealed systems with water (and some anti-freeze) circulated to air handling units distributed around a building.

By coincidence, in Renew issue 169, technical editor Lance Turner published an excellent article on how he DIY installed a relatively cheap factory-sealed refrigerant window/wall reverse cycle airconditioner (RCAC) that could be plugged into an existing power socket.

Lance also makes many practical observations about interpreting energy labelling, outdated wiring regulations and other issues. His approach also allowed him to install his RCAC at floor level, where it is more effective for heating (see shorturl.at/5EhKd). This is a ‘must-read’ for policy makers and innovators.

Other factors
Dumping of inefficient appliances is becoming a global problem. More work is needed to improve efficiency of second-hand products. IEA notes that harmonising standards can help. Australia has plenty of scope to improve here, as shown in my graph that shows the wide range in running costs between highest and lowest star-rated products on the market.

Global conflict is undermining efficiency improvement. For example, IEA points out that the Russian invasion of Ukraine increased global energy intensity (that is, reduced energy efficiency) by 2 percent. I expect that the Middle East tragedy will have a similar impact, while the energy and carbon emission impact of rebuilding could be even bigger.

Efficient electrification
IEA describes ‘efficient electrification’ as a bright spot. Electrification is accelerating in Australia, though I still struggle to get many clean energy advocates to add the word’ efficient’ to their slogans. Almost all media debate focuses on increasing energy supply, renewable energy and, recently, energy storage. The first graph gives an example how efficiency and electrification work together to maximise benefits and minimise costs of decarbonising. Efficiency also helps to improve resilience to power failures and demand flexibility: for example a well-insulated fridge keeps food cold for longer.

My recent experience with aquatic centres has highlighted the need for upskilling, multi-skilling and cross-disciplinary teams. A thermally efficient building, an efficient heat pump with thermal storage, energy recovery from hot, humid exhaust air and flexible, smart management are all needed to deliver a good result. Luckily, New Zealand aquatic centre designers are moving into the Australian market. They haven’t had cheap gas for 50 years, so they know more about how to design efficient electric aquatic centres.

Developing and developed countries—my Chile experience
While much of the IEA energy transition focus is on developing countries, Australia and other developed economies have plenty of work to do, too.

I recently worked with a team from APEC (the Asia Pacific Economic others. I was impressed. They certainly face many challenges, but I could see how they achieved their WEF rating.
While we were in Chile, Santiago experienced its heaviest one-day rainfall on record, a reminder of the reality of climate change. Maybe some Australian politicians and business leaders should visit some ‘developing’ countries to learn a few lessons.