Launching its inaugural Energy Efficiency Market Report the International Energy Agency (IEA) has said global energy saving investments, and their effects on energy demand, are now equal to the net contribution of other fuel sources.
The IEA valued worldwide energy efficiency investments in 2011 at €221 billion, a level on a par with global funding of renewable energy and fossil fuel power sources.
“Energy efficiency has been called a ‘hidden fuel’, yet it is hiding in plain sight,” said the IEA’s executive director Maria van der Hoeven, at a presentation for the report in Korea.
“Indeed, the degree of global investment in energy efficiency and the resulting energy savings are so massive that they beg the following question: Is energy efficiency not just a hidden fuel but rather the world’s first fuel?” she asked.
European Union news website EurActiv reports between 2005 and 2010, 11 of the IEA member states made energy savings equal to €310bn, higher than from any other single fuel source.
Without this, the countries would now be consuming about two-thirds more energy than at present.
Since 1974, energy savings in the 11 countries avoided the burning of 1.5 billion tonnes of oil equivalent, according to the IEA’s Energy Efficiency Market Report 2013.
It finds that an absence of dynamic pricing in energy markets together with subsidies, high transaction costs, information failures and a lack of institutional capacity can sometimes impede efficiency improvements.
However, it also cites a general growth of the efficiency market, due to effective government policies and high energy prices.
Energy standards, labelling, access to assessments and financing, and obligations on suppliers have also proved “crucial”, the report said.
While traditional appliance markets may seem static, energy efficient products and ICT equipment are growth areas, it said.
EurActiv reports an obscure vote at a European Union regulation committee on eco-design requirements on October 10 though, gave a flavour of some of the obstacles still facing the sector.
Member states’ representatives elected to remove all small and local space ‘solid fuel’ heaters from the Eco-design Directive’s scope, as they could not agree on relevant air pollution requirements.
The officials also reduced energy savings requirements for the smallest local space heaters that run on electricity and gas from a proposed 36 per cent to 31 per cent.
Energy efficiency advocates say this is a particular problem as electric heaters have already been exempted from energy labeling schemes.
The European Commission had suggested requiring a label on product packages, warning that the heater’s energy performance was equivalent to a bottom-of-the-table ‘G’ grade.
Even this marked a substantial climb down from the EC’s original goals.
However, the committee, led by the EU’s southern nations, voted to restrict the labels to portable space heaters, and delay their implementation from 2016 to 2018.
As these are the cheapest appliances on the market, consumer groups say that shoppers believing them to have a better energy saving record than they do, in fact, could now unwittingly buy them.
“The member states have missed an opportunity and will now continue to cause problems for Europe’s citizens, such as higher air pollution levels and higher energy bills,” said Stephane Arditi, coordinator for the Coolproducts campaign group.
Electricity should only be encouraged for use with products such as TV’s and fridges where no alternatives were available, he argued.
Gas and other fuels could power space heaters, he added.
“As of today I don’t have any signal as a consumer telling me if a small electric room heater is a bad performer because of this watering down of the eco-design requirement’s minimum energy efficiency performance,” he told EurActiv.
