IEA report shows how to achieve dramatic energy savings in the buildings sector by 2050
A new target=”_blank”>report from the International
Energy Agency released today shows how heating and cooling
technologies that are energy-efficient and that emit little or no
carbon dioxide can dramatically reduce energy consumption and CO2
emissions within residential, commercial and public buildings, a
sector that currently accounts for around one-third of total final
energy consumption.
The IEA Technology Roadmap Energy-efficient Buildings:
Heating and Cooling Equipment shows how technologies such as solar
thermal, heat pumps, thermal energy storage, and combined heat and
power for buildings have the potential to reduce CO2 emissions by
up to 2 gigatonnes (Gt) by 2050 - around a quarter of today’s
emissions from buildings - and save 710 million tonnes oil
equivalent (Mtoe) of energy by 2050.
Much of the potential energy savings
identified in the report could be achieved rapidly, both because
the required technologies are available today and because heating
and cooling equipment is typically replaced between 7 and 30 years
- much more rapidly than the buildings themselves, which may last
30 to 100 years or more.
“Energy efficiency and CO2-free
technologies for heating and cooling in buildings offer many
low-cost options for reducing energy consumption, consumers’ energy
bills and CO2 emissions in buildings, with technologies that are
available today.
Given that space heating and cooling and hot water
production consume perhaps half of all energy consumed in buildings
today, the savings potential is very large,” Bo Diczfalusy, the
IEA’s Director of Sustainable Energy Policy and Technology, said at
the launch of the report.
The IEA prepared the roadmap in consultation with
representatives of government, industry, academia and
non-governmental organizations.
The document provides an overview of the current status of
different mature, commercially available heating and cooling
equipment, as well as emerging technologies.
It charts a course for expanding the deployment of these
technologies to 2050 with the ambitious goal of completely
transforming the market for heating and cooling in
buildings.
This report is the latest in the IEA’s series of
target=”_blank”>technology roadmaps, which aim to
guide governments and industry on the actions and milestones needed
to achieve the potential for a full range of clean energy
technologies.
Strong policy action is
required
The report recommends urgent action to overcome widespread
market barriers to the deployment of heating and cooling equipment
that is energy-efficient and emits less or even no CO2.
This is essential if the building stock is to begin
consuming less energy and emitting less CO2. Government policies
must be both “broad” enough to address specific barriers (for
instance, by raising awareness on the part of workers who install
building equipment) and “deep” enough to reach all of the
stakeholders in the fragmented building sector (for instance, by
aligning the incentives for building developers with future
owners).
“Governments need to create
the economic conditions that will enable heating and cooling
technologies to meet environmental criteria at least cost.” Bo
Diczfalusy, the IEA’s Director of Sustainable Energy Policy and
Technology.
“The challenge is significant given the very fragmented
nature of the buildings sector and the difficulty of ensuring that
effective policy reaches all decision makers.” said
Diczfalusy.
If those making the decision to buy heating and cooling
equipment are not given adequate incentives to address the
environmental costs of energy use, they are unlikely to make
optimal decisions from an economic and environmental
perspective.
However, even if the environmental costs are built into
energy prices, many non-cost market barriers to more efficient and
low- and zero-carbon heating and cooling technologies
remain.
These barriers mean that addressing the unique challenges
of the buildings sector will require a package of policy measures
and strong, consistent, stable and balanced policy support in the
following four main areas:
- Increased technology RD&D is required, with an
additional USD 3.5 billion per year needed by 2030. - Improved information for consumers and agreed, robust
metrics for analysing the energy and CO2 savings of heating and
cooling technologies as well as their life-cycle financial
benefits. - Market transformation (deployment) policies to overcome
the current low-uptake of the many energy-efficient and
low/zero-carbon heating and cooling technologies. - Greater international collaboration in R&D,
best-practice policy packages and deployment programmes to maximise
the benefits of policy intervention, as well as the transfer of
technical knowledge between countries and regions.
The roadmap advises OECD countries to emphasise policies
that address retrofits of heating and cooling equipment in the
existing building stock, given the relatively low rate of new build
and slow retirement of existing buildings.
In non-OECD countries, the rapid construction of new
buildings means that the most urgent priority is to develop policy
for heating and cooling equipment for new buildings.
The key technologies are available today
The roadmap shows how to achieve a complete transformation
of heating and cooling in buildings and of providing hot
water.
By 2050, the policies advocated could cut fossil fuels’
share in useful space and water heating to between 5% and 20%
(depending on region) from today’s position of dominance, while the
global average efficiency of cooling systems would more than
double.
The report focuses on four key technology options for
heating and cooling in buildings: Other technologies
and fuels play a small but important role (e.g.
biomass).
- Active solar thermal systems, wherein water is heated by
the sun for space, or, more commonly, for sanitary hot water
use; - Combined heat and power systems, which simultaneously
produce heat and electricity for use in the building or for sale to
the grid (the heat produced can be used for space or water heating,
and even cooling with a thermally driven chiller); - Heat-pump systems (such as air
conditioners), which have high end-use efficiencies and can be
designed to produce heat and/or cold, and depending on system
design, produce these simultaneously; - Thermal energy storage, which facilitates greater use of
renewable energy, enables optimal operation of heating and cooling
systems, and provides increased flexibility in balancing energy
systems.
As part of the transformation outlined in the roadmap, the
total number of installed heat pumps in the residential sector
would grow from around 800 million today to nearly 3.5 billion by
2050.
Solar thermal capacity would increase by more than 25
times today’s level to reach 3 743 GWth by 2050, while capacity of
distributed CHP in buildings would be 45 times greater than today’s
level, reaching 747 GWe in 2050.
By 2050, half of all space heating and hot water systems
would be equipped with thermal energy storage.
A free copy of the IEA Technology Roadmap
Energy-efficient Buildings: Heating and Cooling Equipment,
target=”_blank”>is available here.
Source: www.iea.org
