Renew Extra Weekly

Energy demand may have fallen during the COVID-19 shut down, but if the global economy gets back to something like its earlier level, it will rise again. Indeed, as before, it may rise faster than renewables can expand, so that carbon emissions will also keep rising. That certainly was the pattern in some sectors before COVID 19. But it is not the complete story- in some cases, demand had been falling, for example for electricity in some countries . And obviously it could do more, with proper support for energy efficiency measures. That too would help cut emissions. Overall global CO2 levels had in fact   stabilized , with coal use being squeezed out in some (but not all) areas and renewable continuing to expand. REN21’s 2019 Renewable Energy Status Report noted, that modern renewables had expanded their share in final energy consumption by an average of 4.5% over the last ten years, whereas global energy demand had only risen by 1.5%.   However, although growing, the t...

Following a new review by the Energy Saving Trust, ten years on from its landmark report into the quality of heat pump installations in the UK, the EST now says ‘ it’s time to reset your opinions on heat pumps -particularly air-source heat-pumps’ . As it admits, there had been some serious criticism of heat pump performance, air source systems in particular, which seemed not to be well suited to often cold, damp UK.   However, improved technology and better installation evidently means that all is now well in most cases, with EST/ICAX noting that most users were happy with them . Indeed, in a Blog (that sadly now seems to have been blocked for some reason), EST’s Ben Whittle was so enthused he said that we didn’t need to go for hybrid heat pump/gas heating system as proposed for home heating by the government and the Committee on Climate Change (CCC): ‘ An all-electric heat pump has an auxiliary electric heater to assist in the coldest months - the vast majority of heat pum...