Learning From European Energy Policies: Opportunities for district heating and cooling

摘要

Energy drives our economies, guarantees our living standards and secures our health. In the European Union, just like elsewhere in the world, we tend to take affordable energy for granted. And suddenly, while being on a daily diet of growing energy consumption, we are confronted with both soaring oil prices and an unprecedented manmade climate challenge due to the carbon released from our energy-driven activities. The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects global primary energy consumption to increase by 55 percent between 2005 and 2030. The peak of global oil reserves is already in sight. The Russia-Ukraine gas dispute at the beginning of 2009 - the second within two years' time - has impressively shown that energy dependence is a major issue for the EU, which already today imports more than half of the energy it needs. At the same time, the European energy balance clearly shows that half the energy content of primary fuels is lost in conversion and transformation processes before arriving as useful energy at the customers.