A recent policy insight by think tank 'The Green Alliance' is advocating government action in support of greater adoption of energy efficiency through the use of digital technologies such as smart sensors, IoT and analytics. In support of this, it cites an academic paper which claims that "Energy efficiency has been directly responsible for a quarter of the UK’s economic growth since 1971".
”A smarter way to save energy” is a policy insight by The Green Alliance2, a think tank, which has been attracting a lot of attention in industry publications, on websites, and social media, most of which focus on headline-grabbing statistics such as…
However, the original document contains an even more dramatic statement, which seems to have been overlooked:
Energy efficiency has been directly responsible for a quarter of the UK’s economic growth since 19714
This is a huge claim! Digging deeper, the statement has been taken from a guest posting on the website carbonbrief. The authors, four academics from Leeds and York Universities, justify their central argument well, and the paper is fully supported by references. It goes on to discuss the implications of this when considering the need to limit growth in energy use5 whilst still continuing to grow GDP6.
The authors speculate that this result may also partially explain the much-discussed problem of the decline in output per worker in the UK despite efforts to reverse it, sometimes known as “The Productivity Puzzle”7. The reason for this may simply be that labour has a shrinking role in the economy against an increasing role for energy productivity, i.e. energy efficiency improvements.
This is in conjunction with the forecast that the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) estimates that total power demand could double by 2050 due to switching from fossil fuel to electricity for heat, transport, and industrial processes.
The authors propose three courses of action:
The policy insight stresses that better energy efficiency makes businesses more profitable and resilient, even when taking into account the initial cost of the investment8.
By 2030 energy efficiency could save business around £6 billion a year, including £2.7 billion saving for SME’s10
The policy insight goes further stating that progress to date has been too slow, in part due to businesses being unwilling to accept payback periods beyond a couple of years and a lack of access to relevant finance and skills.
Having defined the problem, the bulk of the document describes how digital technologies provide the solution
Rather than relying on estimates, the increased use of data from measurement will help developers to understand how buildings are actually used and identify ways to reduce energy consumption.
The authors of ”A smarter way to save energy” propose that the Government should adopt the following:
Here at SSE Energy Solutions, we are fully behind these conclusions and are currently working with many customers along just such lines, through a combination of BeMS, IoT systems, and energy optimisation initiatives such as our Business Energy Intelligence (BEI) software.
If you would like to improve your business efficiency, through energy usage monitoring, better management of BEMS systems or through distributed energy systems, SSE Energy Solutions can help.
Call us on 0345 072 9529, or email us at info@sseenergyoptimisation.co.uk