Everyone is worried about the price of energy and that Europeans are paying so much more than in most other regions of the world.  But the eceee paper points out the simple fact that energy prices are not necessarily the cause of high costs.  But more importantly, the investing in measures to improve energy efficiency reduces the volume of energy used and since costs are the product of price and volume, energy efficiency mitigates accordingly the disadvantage that higher prices may have.  This is a simple concept that so few seem to grasp.

It should be remembered that when industries in different parts of the world compete, energy price is only one component of production.  A higher price for the input of energy can and almost invariably will be offset by higher security of supply and less exposure to risks the paper argues.  It also has to be remembered that Europe has always had high energy prices, in large part because of taxes and factoring in externalities such as the environment, while other countries have taken a much more hands off approach.

“Competitiveness is to a considerable degree an issue of quality rather than of price for the products”, says Hans Nilsson, Swedish energy efficiency expert and an eceee board member.

Europe’s competitiveness is very much a major discussion point in the corridors of power these days.  This is not a time for knee-jerk reactions, but for sound, deliberate policymaking.  This is an opportunity to re-affirm our commitment to long-term sustainable policies but we have to appreciate what it takes to create the necessary policy framework.

As the report states, “energy efficiency is not a panacea for all economic and industrial concerns but it can play a vital role. But, without an energy-efficient approach and commitment at a high level, the inefficiencies within a plant, an industrial sector or an end-use sector, place too high a burden on an economy. Energy efficiency is recognised to be the most cost-effective way to address energy demand and environmental issues.”

 EiD welcomes this initiative by eceee and looks forward to the ensuing discussion.  The report is available here.

The European Union should scrap fossil fuel and renewable energy subsidies and set a target to cut oil imports to remain the leader in the fight against global warming, according to Poland's environment minister.

The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources met Thursday, May 16th, to vote on a series of measures that included S. 363, The Geothermal Expansion and Production Act. The legislation was sponsored by Senator Wyden (D-OR), and co-sponsored by Senators Murkowski (R-AK), Begich (D-AK), Crapo (R-ID), Risch (R-ID) and Merkley (D-OR).

Hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” has been widely criticized by environmentalists who cite concerns with water pollution and methane leakage from this high-volume method of extracting natural gas. However, the burning of natural gas is undoubtedly better for the planet than the burning of coal. Some experts are now saying that — toxic chemicals an

Prices for wind energy in Brazil, currently the lowest in the world, may rise at least 15 percent due to government policies designed to make the nation's power grid more reliable.

It's status quo for the Portsmouth High School wind turbine. On Monday night, town planner Gary Crosby informed the Town Council that negotiations ceased with two possible developers interested in fixing or replacing the 336-foot-high turbine, which has been broken since June 2012.

The penetration of renewable energy into the electricity supply mix has been much in the news recently. During the first quarter, Portugal generated three-quarters of its electricity with renewable energy. Meanwhile, in Germany, one-fifth of all electricity was generated with renewables, most of that from new sources of renewable energy, such as wind and solar. And recently, at a conference in San Francisco, attendees heard calls for generating not just 100 percent of electricity supply with renewable energy, but far more — 200 percent to 300 percent of generation — in order to meet the need for heating, cooling, and transportation as well.

A slew of bills introduced in Louisiana’s legislature this year were challenging the state’s solar incentives. At least one of which, House Bill 705 to gradually phase out the state’s solar and wind tax credits by 2020, has moved forward. While that bill might make some sense, other bills, like a bill to eliminate tax credits immediately, seem to b

Ernie Moniz has been unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the next Secretary of Energy, in a 97-0 vote (with three nonvoters). He succeeds Stephen Chu who held the position for four years.

• This year’s eceee Summer Study is only a couple of weeks away – June 3 to 8.  The theme is Rethink, Renew, Restart. As the eceee states: “It is time to Rethink policies and options. It is time to Renew commitments to climate, energy security and reduced energy demand. And it is time to Restart activities that actually achieve something.” I have talked to several of the participants, read several of the papers (provided by authors not the eceee), been part of discussions to set up informal sessions and have been arranging to meet people at the bar. With this year’s summer study celebrating 20 years I’m bringing my t-shirt from 2005.  Which one are you bringing? 

•  EiD will be a co-organiser together with EEIP (Energy Efficiency in Industrial Processes) at EU Sustainable Energy Week.  The industrial energy efficiency event on financing is on June 27^th at 9 am.  There are stellar speakers and Rod will be moderator.  Entitled “Financing Energy Efficiency: Why Bother?” has to entice you to attend. Download the programme here.
• EiD will also participate as a moderator in EEIP’s Conference on Energy Recovery in Industry, June 12^th in Duisburg, Germany. The programme is available here.
• Remember about the consultation for the Green Paper on “A 2030 framework for climate and energy policies”.  You have until July 2^nd.  Information is available on DG Energy’s website.

SolarCity Corp. (SCTY), a solar-energy developer chaired by billionaire Elon Musk, won financing from Goldman Sachs (GS) Group Inc. for more than $500 million in rooftop solar systems that the company will complete this year.

Several news bits from the solar sector show more signs of stabilization after a 2-year-old downturn, even as an ongoing trade war looks set to escalate. The big picture in these news bits does seem to reflect some cautious optimism returning to the sector after the prolonged downturn due to massive oversupply. But that turnaround remains very tent

2013 is nearly halfway through, so we'd like to share an update of Vote Solar initiatives and notable industry happenings from net metering to innovative financing.

Reaping renewable energy from un-dammed portions of great American rivers like the Mississippi, Ohio, or even the Columbia is an idea that has been bandied about for decades.

Distributed generation and international markets will be the twin focus for SunPower over the next few years as the company makes a big push for using its concentrating PV technology and selling residential leases abroad, SunPower executives said during its analyst day presentations Wednesday.

The U.K. postponed its mass installation of "smart" energy meters by a year as suppliers struggle with design glitches and testing is delayed.

Nick Butler wrote an excellent blog in the Financial Times that brings some start messages.  He firmly believes that the shale “revolution” is real and not going away.  He warns the climate change lobby will have to adapt.  Is he right?  He certainly puts a good case forward for starting from a point of reality.  Let’s see.

Galileo and the shale gas revolution

The news that Exxon is to build a $10 bn LNG export facility in Texas marks another significant step forward in the story of shale gas and its disruptive impact on the world energy market. Those who want a parallel for the painful process through which so many of the established forces of the industry on one side and the lobby groups on another have struggled to come to terms with the reality of shale gas over the last three years should read John Heilbron’s fascinating book on Galileo.

Back in the 17th century, those who had tied their reputations to old ideas used ever more elaborate and unconvincing arguments to deny the truth of new discoveries. Nothing but the old status quo could be conceived, particularly if new ideas threatened the very foundations of received beliefs. After all, didn’t the Bible say that the earth didn’t move? And, of course, if one idea was permitted where would it end? Rather than permitting open discussion, dangerous thoughts were suppressed. Galileo was tried by the Inquisition and forced to recant before being put under house arrest for the remainder of his life.

Over the last few years, the assertions of the ancien regime in the energy business have become ever more strident. Shale gas would never be developed because fracking didn’t work. The resources were inadequate to make development commercial. Fracking could not be done safely even by the best engineers in the business. There would be mass earthquakes. The resource base would soon run dry. The infrastructure could not cope. And then, more recently, no other country could match what had happened in the US. There were no resources, no skills, no water, and even less infrastructure. And no, shale gas would never affect the market beyond the US because no US president would ever permit exports.

There will be winners and losers and surprise, surprise the losers have been the loudest voices in denial

One by one these assertions have become more desperate and further from reality. Shale gas development is now within reach of a dozen different countries around the world. Some development will no doubt be too expensive to be commercially viable but the technology is not static. Costs are falling not rising and companies are learning how to handle complexities such as the recycling of water.

Prices will be volatile – that is the nature of many new commodity market developments. There will a boom and then the first overinflated bubble will burst – which is what has been happening to a degree in the US. But then, as so many times in economic history, the pieces will be picked up and consolidated and an enduring industry will emerge around more stable prices. And beyond that there is tight oil to come as well.

The impact will be profound. The UK may not have as much shale gas as the US – but let’s just wait for the British Geological Survey to be finally released. The fact that such a reputable study is not being published is raising a lot of questions. Who exactly in Government is claiming to know more about geology than the BGS. ?

Some communities do not want shale gas development – and they should not be forced to accept it. France may never allow its shale gas (or tight oil ) to be developed. But because of trade, energy prices everywhere will be affected . This is where US exports are so important. Exxon is not a company to invest big money lightly. There is a market for gas in the Far East where the demise of the Japanese nuclear sector has left a supply gap which has to be filled. Now it will be filled. And in a world where all prices are linked that will drive down prices in Europe too.

Meanwhile companies like Centrica will bring gas from the US into the UK. There will be winners and losers and surprise, surprise the losers are been the loudest voices in denial of the reality and potential of shale gas. But they too will adjust – even relics such as Gazprom who for so long have been determined to try to maintain a price structure which ties gas to oil prices are starting to recognise that there really is gas to gas competition now.

The climate change lobby has to adjust too. The shale gas revolution is in the process of lowering the cost of using hydrocarbons just when they wanted the reverse to happen. Shale gas is not all bad. It has reduced coal use in the US, and could make a major positive difference in China and India – reducing emissions from their likely path by more than any other change which is in prospect.

Those prospective developments have yet to be proved commercial but the climate lobby should be hoping that they will be. Beyond that those who care about the climate have to adjust their strategy to a world in which hydrocarbons have a new lease of life and energy costs are significant lower than they have previously predicted.

On both sides the important thing is to start from reality. Galileo after recanting under intense pressure from Catholic authorities who wanted him to deny that the earth moved around the sun, is said to have whispered: “but still it moves”.

Jeffrey Simpson, one of Canada’s foremost columnists, writes in the Globe and Mail about the politics and sad state of affairs the government has got itself in over promoting its tar sands.  While this is a Canadian perspective, it is important for those outside Canada to see the “sea of troubles” as Simpson aptly writes.

Bitumen needed statesmen, not salesmen

Proponents of bitumen oil see a sea of troubles, or at least choppy waters, almost everywhere.

An eventual west-east line to Quebec and New Brunswick looks promising. Elsewhere, prospects are uncertain or grim.

The biggest proponents of bitumen oil – the Alberta Progressive Conservatives, the Harper Conservatives and the oil industry itself – have, in some respects, been the authors of these troubles. They could have acted differently and possibly made things easier. But a different course of action would have required a different strategic understanding.

They could have started with a map. Bitumen oil is landlocked. Instead of asking, “What can we do to help other jurisdictions trans-ship our oil?” The Alberta government and the Harperites assumed that everyone else desperately needed bitumen – that what was good for Alberta would axiomatically be good for all.

The two governments insisted that critics were ill-informed when they said bitumen is dirtier than conventional oil. They swallowed the canard that bitumen oil is somehow “ethical” because Canada has better standards than Iran and Venezuela – standing ethics on its head by defining our practices against the worst, rather than the notional idea of the best.

These self-comforting but delusional starting points led to trouble. Instead of analyzing how to deal with criticism constructively, the governments decided it was to be denounced. In a classic strategic error, the governments lumped critics together instead of realizing that they ranged from those who oppose all new oil to those who know oil will continue to be in demand but want to lower emissions from its use.

Two strategies should have guided the government/industry approach: Find out what other jurisdictions need to give Alberta a “yes,” and what Alberta needs to make bitumen emissions comparable to those of conventional oil.

A very smart Alberta premier and a solution-seeking federal government would have gone to British Columbia a long time ago and asked: “How can we make this happen together?” The Alberta premier should have gone to Prince Rupert and Victoria and Vancouver, spoken to local groups and officials, sought common ground.

Instead, B.C. was taken for granted. Yes, B.C. Premier Christy Clark pulled a stunt by going to Calgary, meeting for 10 minutes with counterpart Alison Redford, then racing for the microphones to play politics back home. Apparently, the two premiers can’t stand each other. But the long game of strategy involves the pursuit of interests rather than personal pique.

As it stands, the two pipelines proposed for bitumen oil across B.C. are in serious, likely irredeemable, political trouble. Ms. Clark has laid down her five conditions, which have been rebuffed by Alberta. Her possible successor, New Democrat Adrian Dix, has rejected Kinder Morgan down the Fraser Valley before environmental hearings even begin.

As for the Keystone XL pipeline through the United States, it has been held up much longer than anyone expected, delayed by internal U.S. politics. It’s likely to be approved eventually, but President Barack Obama’s administration was hoping for serious action, or even a gesture, by Alberta and Canada to reduce bitumen emissions. That might have helped deal with the European Union’s fuel directive aimed at bitumen.

Instead, Alberta and Canada kept sending salesmen to Washington and elsewhere, restating Alberta’s great environmental record, a stretch of an argument. Yes, the intensity of emissions per barrel from bitumen oil has come down, but with the anticipated increase in barrels in the decades ahead, emissions will rise, not fall.

Alberta’s per capita carbon emissions are the second-highest in Canada, after Saskatchewan’s. Alberta’s total emissions are easily the highest in Canada. Doing something about this by way of a carbon tax or an increase in the existing intensity tax would have demonstrated real commitment. If Ottawa had published its regulations for the oil and gas industry, instead of endlessly delaying their publication, that would have helped too.

Instead, the governments, presumably with the industry’s blessing, acted as if salesmanship rather than statesmanship would suffice. As such, they have contributed to this sea of troubles.

Ashutosh Jogelekar writes an excellent article in the Scientific American about the effect of one’s political position has on whether you invest in energy efficient technologies or not.

 Political ideology can dominate other factors in choosing energy efficiency

Political ideology – tracking from liberal to conservative from left to right – can influence the purchase of a bulb with (green) and without (gray) an environmental label (Image: Gromet et al. PNAS, 2013, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1218453110)

Energy efficiency sounds like a good idea on multiple fronts; mitigating global warming, reducing dependence on foreign oil and saving money. Conservatives and liberals may disagree about the first reason, but you would expect both of them to enthusiastically embrace energy efficiency based on the other two reasons. Yet we find attitudes toward energy efficiency split along politically ideological lines in this country. Why? A new study suggests one simple potential reason: the liberal environmental messaging associated with energy efficiency may discourage conservatives from using such technologies.

That is the conclusion of a study done by researchers from Duke University and the University of Pennsylvania which was published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The United States with its two-party system and the traditional split among liberals and conservatives in matters of environmentalism is a good test case for this kind of project. The researchers’ goal was two-fold; firstly, to investigate how people’s political inclination tracks with their attitudes about energy efficiency, and secondly how that attitude is influenced by the individual reasons typically enunciated by proponents of energy efficiency.

To examine these factors the researchers carried out two studies, Study 1 and Study 2. Study 1 looked at a sample of about 700 individuals aged 19-81. They were provided information about the benefits of energy efficiency and then asked what psychological value they placed on energy efficiency itself and on the three benefits of energy efficiency: reducing carbon emissions, dependence on foreign oil and cost. The study found out that political leaning tracks well not just with general attitudes about energy efficiency but also with the individual benefits. Not surprisingly, conservatives placed the least value on reducing carbon emissions; what was surprising was that reducing cost and foreign oil dependence didn’t rank high on their priorities either. There was also a split along gender lines. The paper summarizes the findings of Study 1:

As expected, the more conservative participants were, the less they favored investing in energy-efficient technology. With regard to individuals’ psychological valuation of the environment, energy independence, and energy costs, all three judgments were associated with participants’ political ideology: The more conservative participants were, the less psychological value they placed on all these concerns. However, the ideological divide was greatest for reduction of carbon emissions, indicating the polarizing nature of environmental concerns (and the relatively broader appeal of energy independence and cost concerns across ideological lines). In additional analyses, we also included a sex × ideology interaction term, because conservative males tend to express the greatest denial of climate change. This interaction was a significant predictor for the valuation of carbon emission reductions but did not predict investment in energy efficiency or ratings for the other values.

This is an intriguing result but I have two thoughts about it. Firstly, the differences in attitude did not differ dramatically between conservatives and liberals although they reached statistical significance. Secondly, I think it would have been quite interesting to run a few more experiments in which participants were blinded to one or more of the three benefits of energy efficiency. For instance, what would conservatives say if they were told that the primary goal of energy efficiency is to reduce long-term cost? Psychological research has demonstrated the influence of prior information on consequent decision making and it would have been valuable to examine this influence in the present study.

Study 2 was smaller but much more interesting. In it participants were given $2 to buy either a standard incandescent light bulb or a fluorescent CFL light bulb. The CFL cost $1.50 and was more expensive than the standard $0.50 bulb. They could keep the change. Both liberals and conservatives were then provided information about the advantages of the CFL bulb, including its longer life and the significant long-term savings from it. Now comes the interesting part. The study was split into two sub-studies. In one case there was an environmental label (for instance one saying “Protect the Environment”) on the CFL bulb. In the other case there was no label.

What the researchers found out was that there was a marked difference between the choices of conservatives in the two cases. In the first case the label put them off in spite of the cost savings; seeing a connection with the environment closed their mind to the other benefits. In the second case without the label, the benefits of the CFL swayed their minds. The trends also held for moderate conservatives. The implications are clear; environmental messaging can actually discourage conservatives even from trying out technology that promises other clear benefits.

Here are some other interesting observations. When the prices of the bulbs were the same, then the label did not matter; all participants picked the CFL bulb, reflecting the dominance of both short-term and long-term economic concerns over others. In addition liberals always picked the CFL bulb, irrespective of its price.

Summarizing the results of Study 2, the researchers say that:

These findings indicate that connecting energy-efficient products to environmental concerns can negatively affect the demand for these products, specifically among persons in the United States who are more politically conservative. Although the majority of participants, regardless of ideology, selected the more expensive energy-efficient light bulb when it was unlabeled, the more moderate and conservative participants were less likely to purchase this option when an environmental label was attached to it.

The study (with all the usual caveats including sample size and nature) says something that both liberals and conservatives need to understand. Firstly, it’s clear that economic benefits often trump environmental ones for conservatives; at the same time, the fact that the environmental message blinded conservatives to the long-term saving says that ideology can also trump self-interest. From a practical standpoint though, this means that environmentally friendly technologies advocated by liberals are likely to be embraced by conservatives if they become cheap enough, irrespective of their attitudes toward liberal environmentalism.

More importantly, the study shows that the message matters. It tells us that liberals should perhaps tone down their big environmental message if they want to convince conservatives to adopt their products. This would be somewhat counterintuitive to the belief that a greater emphasis on environmentalism is the right way to win conservatives over to your cause. To conservatives the message is also clear; if the economics makes sense, try to ignore the political message. And the most important conclusion of this study cannot be ignored: if you really want to work together, leave ideology aside and focus on what you have in common. That’s the way to move forward.

Global inverter leader SMA AG cast a downward glance in its fiscal 1Q13 results today, and is preparing for what could be major layoffs in the face of the global PV market's first decline in many years.

Throughout Canada, energy efficiency retrofit grants have helped stimulate the geothermal industry and have made geothermal heat pumps more popular than ever before. The introduction of these substantial financial incentives on both a provincial and federal level have been a boon for the geothermal industry and the energy efficiency retrofit indust