For those business leaders who persevere in seeking savings in power consumption, the payback can be considerable. It is a lesson taken to heart by a small community centre on the Isle of Portland off England’s south-west coast. Over the past decade the Osprey Leisure Centre, built in the 1980s and equipped with old gas boilers, has pursued a number of green initiatives to cut not just its energy consumption but also its carbon dioxide emissions. Work started with an interest-free loan from the Carbon Trust — a consultancy set up with UK government funding in 2001 — which was repaid over three years. New lighting technology, a pool cover and rooftop solar panels all helped reduce energy consumption.
FT 3rd Oct 2018 read more »
New energy efficient eco-designs for 15 products including fridges, TVs and dishwashers have been delayed, EU diplomats say, even though experts consider them “crucial” to meeting Europe’s Paris climate pledge. The delays are also expected to mean consumers will miss out on lower energy bills. The design revamps would have saved 62m tonnes of CO2 emissions – as much as Sweden’s annual primary energy consumption – but now look set to be dealt with by the next commission, in which far right parties may be more influential. Only five energy labelling measures are on track to be approved by a 2 November deadline and at least half of the design overhauls are unlikely to be approved before the European parliament goes into recess in March.
Guardian 2nd Oct 2018 read more »
At an aluminium smelter in Karmoy, south-west Norway, the producer Norsk Hydro and the government are spending nearly half a billion euros to test-run electrolysis technology that it hopes will reduce its energy needs by 15 per cent. It does not sound like much. Yet in a sector that spends up to 45 per cent of its production costs on electricity, the technology could raise billions in profits for European companies competing against rivals in China, the world’s largest producer, and its cheap power prices. “You have to be as energy efficient as possible, because that’s how you make your profits,” says Cillian O’Donoghue, energy and climate change manager at the non-ferrous metals industry group Eurometaux. “For an old technology that has been produced for over 100 years, Ka rmoy is a huge breakthrough . . . The Chinese want the technology, but it’s proprietary technology.”
FT 3rd Oct 2018 read more »