TARSHID is a Super ESCO of Saudi-Arabia that focuses on energy-efficiency in public buildings and commercial projects. Founded in 2017, all the public bodies are mandated to contract with Tarshid on an exclusive basis. Just two projects from 2022 by TARSHID is expected to have saved 220 million KWh of energy annually, that is expected to have freed 140000 barrels of oil equivalent that can be exported, earning revenue for the country.
ESCOs are Energy Service Company that focuses on the suggesting the best practices related to the energy-efficiency and in some cases implement based on the different business model they work on.
What is Energy Efficiency?
Energy Efficiency is the use of lesser energy to produce the same useful work. The energy efficiency is generally termed as 'the first fuel of a sustainable global energy system.'
But it is easier to confuse energy-efficiency with the other energy related term like energy-management, energy-conservation, and energy-intensity, but there are differences between them. The following image (a) describes the key difference among them.
Energy-Efficiency Trends and Recent Developments:
In June 2022, during the 7th Annual Global Conference on Energy-Efficiency hosted in Denmark adopted the Sonderberg Action Plan on Energy Efficiency that outlines a set of strategic principle and policy toolkits developed by International Energy Agency that can help government implement energy-efficiency policies rapidly.
Since 2020, governments also helped mobilize-USD 1 trillion for energy-efficiency-related projects like building retrofits, public transportation, infrastructure developments, and electrical vehicle support. That means almost two-third of the clean energy investment flowed to the energy-efficiency related projects.
Another positive sign is the doubling of the number of electrical vehicles sold for the last two years in a row. In 2022, almost 13% of the vehicles sold were electric, that means one-in-every-eight vehicle sold was an electrical vehicle, thanks to the growing environmental awareness and support policies by the government.
What role energy-efficiency can play?
Energy-efficiency is a win-win situation for everyone- consumers, industries, government, and environment. A greater dependence on electricity and petroleum products due to the modern lifestyle choices has made individuals vulnerable to the vagaries of the energy prices. The increased energy efficiency can provide some respite and it can help individuals reap the benefits of the modern lifestyle at a lesser price.
Industries are business that use bulk-raw materials to produce massive scales of the end-products and in the process, they end up using unprecedented amounts of energy and fossil fuels for steam, heat, and refrigeration-use. The potential of the energy saving due to avoided demand, use of latest technology, and streamlining industrial processes to produce the same output with lesser use of the raw material can help industries save in billions and contribute to the sustainability challenge.
Government are the biggest beneficiaries of the energy-efficiency projects. The following statement beautifully sums up the benefits for the government undertaking such projects:
Energy-intensity is a parameter used to measure the development in the energy-efficiency across countries and across time. The decoupling between the growth and the energy-consumption is a positive sign for the energy projects.
The energy intensity improved on an average 1% during 2001-2010 period, that resulted in saving of 3Gt of CO2 equivalent. The energy intensity further improved during the period 2011-20, in which it reached almost 1.7% reduction and hence saving of almost 6 Gt of CO2 equivalent. The energy-efficiency projects can provide huge service to the environment.
The biggest advantage of the energy-efficiency projects is the demand-side management. One unit of energy saved in the demand side, would approximately five units of energy at the supply side. This means the energy-saved at the end-use side has a potential to save almost five-fold at generation side, that can save billions of funds. These funds can be put to the good use.
Key Takeaways from the blog:
The blog is authored by Pankaj Prasad.
The importance of Energy efficiency well highlighted.