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The Potential of Behavioural Interventions for Optimising Energy Use at Home
…behaviour and encourage investments in structural improvements. This article focuses on the potential for enhancing energy efficiency with policies and programmes designed to educate consumers and encourage them to alter their daily habits – without resorting to large-scale structural improvements. This focus is motivated by the observation that interventions aimed at promoting behavioural change are often cheaper to implement relative to policies that seek to encourage investment. Such measures also tend to be relatively quick to design and implement. What are behavioural interventions and how can behavioural insights enhance the impact of energy efficiency policy? Behavioural interventions are policies and…
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Fuel economy in the United States
Market profile and analysis of fuel consumption trends In 2019, slightly more than 16 million light-duty vehicles (LDVs) were sold in the United States. With an average fuel consumption of 8.6 litres of gasoline equivalent (Lge/ 100 km) for new LDVs in 2019, the United States is 20% above the global average. While fuel consumption of LDVs decreased on average by 2.1% per year from 2005 to 2017, improvements have slipped backwards with fuel consumption increasing by 0.6% between 2018 and 2019. The lapse in fuel consumption reductions is reflected in slowing improvements in fuel economy…
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Capturing the energy beneath our feet
…art instrumentation to capture and share data and activities occurring at FORGE in real time. FORGE’s innovative collaboration and management platform is the first of its kind.How would the project be explained to a high-school student?Traditional geothermal wells are drilled in hot permeable rock. An enhanced geothermal system is a man-made reservoir created where there is hot rock that is not permeable enough. Fluid is injected into the rock, re-opening pre-existing cracks and making the rock permeable. This allows the fluid to transport heat to the surface where energy can extracted and used…
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Putting a price on carbon – an efficient way for Thailand to meet its bold emission target
…clean vehicle incentives, energy efficiency installations, wildfire protection and development of a low-carbon economy workforce. The country has some experience of carbon market mechanisms, but also has “readiness gaps” Having confirmed its nationally determined contribution under the Paris Agreement in 2016, Thailand is implementing various action plans to reach its target of reducing GHG emissions in 2030 to 20.8% below the business-as-usual level. Its National Climate Change Master Plan (2015-50) refers to the carbon market as a potential mechanism to achieve targeted emission reductions in key industries and promote energy efficiency more widely. The upcoming…
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United States' legislation on oil security
…efficiency, to provide a means for verification of energy data, and to conserve water by improving water efficiency of certain plumbing products and appliances (EPCA section 2).In addition to the SPR, the US Congress amended EPCA in 2000 to establish a separate Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve (NEHHOR), in an effort to ensure the uninterrupted supply of home heating oil to several US States (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey) in the country’s Northeast (EPCA section 181).Federal and State government activities and responses to all hazards impacting the energy…
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Green stimulus after the 2008 crisis
…misjudged, deployment targets and policy support were applied too early, and hopes for a manufacturing value chain did not materialise.Energy efficiency policies were and should remain one of the focus areas of green stimulus programmes. The most successful examples combined ambitious policy funding with standardisation, “plug and play” efficiency options and an appropriate consideration of the availability of skilled labour and industrial capability. The overall policy design needs to pay attention to broad impacts on energy security and social inequality. Introduction The 2008-09 global financial crisis led to a global squeeze on credit and fragile financial markets, which…
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Efficient Grid-Interactive Buildings
…in energy efficiency, electrification of end uses and renewable energy generation. For the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a growing population and rising standards of living will massively increase future energy demand. Mitigating growing electricity demand and integrating renewable energy into electricity generation will therefore be paramount for the region’s clean energy transition and avoid lock-in of additional fossil fuel generation. The intermittent nature of variable renewable energy and increasing deployment of distributed energy resources are putting additional pressure on existing grids. In response to these challenges, this report explores the opportunities and challenges for efficient grid…
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Railway Handbook 2015
…the Railway Handbook 2015. For this edition, significant methodological improvements were implemented leading to better consistency between the different indicators presented in this Handbook, in addition to updates of the global data, as well as regional breakdowns for those regions that we consider the most relevant from the point of view of transport activity: European Union, USA, Japan, Russia, India, and China. This edition devotes particular attention to the energy efficiency of rail vehicles. This is achieved by providing information on the energy efficiency of trains in different world regions, with a richer set of indicators for the European Union.
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Regional Energy Efficiency Policy Recommendations: Southeast Asia Region
Working with energy efficiency policy experts from ten countries in Southeast Asia, the IEA and partners including the Asian Development Bank, the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP), the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources of Indonesia and the International Copper Association Southeast Asia (ICASEA) developed this set of twenty region-specific energy efficiency policy recommendations. These recommendations seek to help countries in Southeast Asia overcome barriers to energy efficiency uptake and realise the tremendous benefits of energy efficiency for their economies.
The IEA also worked with regional partners to develop energy efficiency policy recommendations for the Arab-Southern… -
Energy Policies of IEA Countries: United States 2007
…and second-generation biofuels. But thus far, no federal government policy is in place to establish as a target an absolute reduction of CO2 emissions. The resulting uncertainty risks holding back investments into new technologies and may delay projects that are urgently required. The transport sector will be a key to a sustainable success. In the short to medium term, reduced fuel demand through higher vehicle efficiency will increase security and reduce CO2 emissions. Yet the policy for the revision of CAFE (the corporate average fuel economy) standards will leave consumers with vehicles that fall short of the technological possibilities.