Abstract
Improving energy efficiency in industries is imperative for sustainable transitions. This article explores the logic behind calculating energy savings from energy efficiency improvements. Based on a qualitative study of industry-research projects and policies to improve energy efficiency in Norway, the article presents different ways energy savings are estimated when assessing the viability of novel technologies. Here, energy savings are calculated as the difference in energy consumption between a proposed technology (use-case) and an alternative scenario (base-case). We discuss the heterogeneity of the chosen cases of comparison, as they are associated with a wide variety of uncertainty, contextual preconditions, estimates, and projections. Further, we trace the calculations of energy savings of one of these projects as they move from the context of research and technology assessment to official reporting. We show how the circumstances where these numbers are produced become black-boxed as the calculations are transformed and aggregated into a policy program-specific measurement “energy results” in Norway. Our findings show that the project and policy objectives and measurements point in somewhat different directions. Through this, we unpack the logic inscribed in energy savings calculations and the way these are applied to reach multiple goals.
Highlights
In climate change scenarios that successfully limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, improving the energy efficiency of both industrial processes and domestic buildings tend to play an important role (Creutzig et al, 2018; Grubler et al, 2018)
We set out to address how energy savings are calculated in industry-research projects in Norway and to uncover how these measurements are mobilized practically and politically in the policy domain
Essential to this is how energy savings is a quantification of difference
Summary
In climate change scenarios that successfully limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, improving the energy efficiency of both industrial processes and domestic buildings tend to play an important role (Creutzig et al, 2018; Grubler et al, 2018). The differences between these types of comparisons include whether the industrial plants, processes, or components that are compared exists or are projections of a possible future and whether their energy use is measured directly or estimated Through this exercise, we illustrate that while the objectified and standardized energy savings calculations look similar as results, they emerge from very different comparisons. Bottom-up methods examines the effect of measures on individual technologies or end users (Cahill & Gallachóir, 2012), or through monitoring savings by individual projects triggered by policy instruments (Abeelen et al, 2019) These methods are useful for planning, implementing, managing, and tracking the energy efficiency progress (Horowitz & Bertoldi, 2015) and can provide explanations on developments of policy programs (Abeelen et al, 2019). As noted by Abeelen et al (2019, p. 1323), the different methods have been developed for different purposes and must be interpreted with caution
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