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The International Energy Efficiency Scorecard ranks the world's largest economies on their energy efficiency policies and programs.

With this new impetus, engineers and start-up companies have jumped at the challenge, and while beamed power is still in its infancy, three viable options seem to be emerging. The use of radio waves to transmit electricity is perhaps the most obvious solution, since you can in principle use the same kinds of transmitters and receivers used in Wi-Fi communication. Powercast, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has recently used this technology to transmit microwatts and milliwatts of power over at least 15 metres to industrial sensors. They believe a similar approach could one day be used to recharge small devices like remote controls, alarm clocks and even cellphones. A second possibility, for more power-hungry devices, is to fire a finely focused infrared laser beam at a photovoltaic cell, which converts the beam back to electrical energy. It's an approach PowerBeam has adopted, but so far its efficiency is only between 15 and 30 per cent. While that could serve more power-hungry appliances, it would in practice be too wasteful. The technology has been used to power wireless lamps, speakers and electronic photo frames that require less than 10 watts to function. Over time, as both the lasers and photovoltaic cells improve, the company hopes efficiencies of up to 50 per cent will be possible. "There's no reason we couldn't power a laptop eventually," says Graham. Unlike some other possible techniques, a sharply focused beam loses minimal energy over large distances, preserving its efficiency: "A hundred metres is no big deal."

Since buildings account for a large portion of national energy consumption, most of the governments in the Asia Pacific region have taken steps to promote energy management and energy efficiency in both new construction and existing buildings.

In an attempt to reduce costs and cut emissions, manufacturers are increasingly turning to energy efficient technologies. Almost two-thirds of companies surveyed planned to increase investment in energy management during the next 12 months, in areas such as renewable and self-generation technologies. The aerospace industry leads the way, with more than two-thirds investing in energy efficient technologies, compared with 41 per cent in metals and aggregates.

"This analysis shows the main cause to be the lack of a single European energy market, but also slower than expected cost reduction of some new energy technologies and slower deployment of energy efficiency than envisioned.

Energy. The Equinox Summit held in Waterloo Canada 2011 (2011 Equinox Summit: Energy 2030 http://wgsi.org/publications-resources) identified electricity use as humanity's largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Our appetite for electricity is growing faster than for any other form of energy. The communiqué from the summit said 'Transforming the ways we generate, distribute and store electricity is among the most pressing challenges facing society today.... If we want to stabilize CO2 levels in our atmosphere at 550 parts per million, all of that growth needs to be met by non-carbon forms of energy' (2011 Equinox Summit: Energy 2030 http://wgsi.org/publications-resources). Superconducting technologies can provide the energy efficiencies to achieve, in the European Union alone, 33–65% of the required reduction in greenhouse gas emissions according to the Kyoto Protocol (Hartikainen et al 2003 Supercond. Sci. Technol.16 963). New technologies would include superconducting energy storage systems to effectively store power generation from renewable sources as well as high-temperature superconducting systems used in generators, transformers and synchronous motors in power stations and heavy-industry facilities. However, to be effective, these systems must be superior to conventional systems and, in reality, market penetration will occur as existing electrical machinery is written off. At current write-off rates, to achieve a 50% transfer to superconducting systems will take 20 years (Hartikainen et al 2003 Supercond. Sci. Technol.16 963).

a survey of energy professionals that have been asked to comment about the various issues concerning energy usage, the environment, and the government’s role in enforcing environmental rules on utility companies. The survey was conducted by Bloomberg Businessweek and concluded that most energy professionals agree that a change is needed to encourage companies to use their energy more efficiently.

Also called net zero energy buildings, ZEBs bring together existing energy efficient technologies to form a high-performance building

A recent breakthrough by scientists from NUS and University College Cork may mean the arrival of highly energy-efficient smart phones and tablets that can last up to 10 times their usual life.