Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

Residential and commercial buildings account for 35 to 40 percent of total energy consumption worldwide.  Commercial buildings, in particular, consume large amounts of energy related to heating/ventilation/air conditioning (HVAC), lighting, water heating, and other building systems.  Efforts to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions have led to increasing deployments of energy efficiency retrofits for commercial and public buildings.

Promoted by key projects including large-scale long-distance power transmission, ultra-high voltage grid construction, power grid construction in new rural areas and railway electrification reconstruction, the power transmission and distribution and control equipment industry of China achieved rapid development in 2009, with the annual sales revenue and total profit of RMB 656.19 billion and RMB 49.13 billion, a YoY rise of 15.7% and 19.5% respectively. Boosted by the fast growth of power transmission & distribution and control equipment industry, five sub-sectors mounted up vigorously in 2009. In particular, capacitor and corollary equipment sub-sectors showed the most rapid growth, with the prime operating revenue and total profit increasing by 28.3% and 63.3% respectively from a year earlier. This can be ascribed to the following three factors: firstly, China has made much progress in the development of ultra-high voltage and extra-high voltage technologies; secondly, it is the period from 2009 to 2010 that the ultra-high voltage demonstration projects in China have been constructed in succession, characterizing huge investment; thirdly, China has actively promoted the concept of energy conservation and emission reduction and paid increasing attention to voltage quality, safety and electricity saving, etc.

Chinese leaders met in Beijing at the weekend to put the finishing touches to the country’s 12th five-year plan, an economic blueprint that will include targets for growth, income levels, energy efficiency and carbon emissions.

It also sets out a vision for the networks of the future, beyond 2020, in order to lower Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions 5 times by 2050.

Energy efficiency, especially if applied more rapidly in the developing world, saves massively on emissions. Things like the substitution of inefficient industrial motors, building insulation, reduced leaks from pipelines, may not sound exciting as the things at the frontier of technological discovery, but they bring big rewards and quickly.

“Health internets” that will make it easier for public officials to track and manage disease outbreaks; Smart buildings with networked systems that enable them to respond to changing conditions quickly and automatically, almost like living organisms; A transportation system dominated by zero-emissions vehicles and readily available electric-car charging stations; Smart water and sewer systems that will reduce waste and pollution; and Real-time, integrated data on crime and potential crises that will help officials respond quickly … or even proactively (shades of “Minority Report,” anyone?).

Three types of risk The expert group put together by the Commission has already identified three types of risks: Import risk, where raw materials are imported from a politically instable region or from a country where the market economy does not work. "That is relatively easy to do as the World Bank has put together governance indexes which measure the political and economic stability index of countries," the EU official explained.    Production risk within the EU, with potential problems such as land access. "If we are in a country for example where the population density is very high, where urbanisation is very high, obviously access will be weak," the EU official explained. Environmental risk, based on indicators such as air or soil pollution, where the impact of raw materials use is measured from an environmental point of view. "This is innovative compared to other studies," the EU official said. "We have just launched a life-cycle analysis to determine what the environmental impact is for each raw material in terms of exploitation, use, treatment, recycling etc., for air or soil pollution as well as emissions of greenhouse gases."

For many decades, the transformers that populate our power grids have led a fairly one-sided existence. Now, however, their world is being shaken up and a lot more is expected of them: They should cater for the plethora of renewable power sources appearing on the grid; they are required to help maintain grid power quality; they are expected to do their bit in reducing greenhouse gas emissions; and they have to fit in with smart grids. Of course, the traditional commercial pressures to decrease all-round costs, extend asset life, improve monitoring and optimize maintenance still remain.

ABB, the leading power and automation technology group, is well prepared for the new ecodesign transformer regulations that came into force within the EU`s internal market in June 2014. All new transformers put into service in the EU must fulfil minimum energy efficiency requirements from July 1, 2015, giving the industry and market a period of grace of less than one year to adapt.Large amounts of power pass through transformers, which account for 30-40 percent of the losses in transmission and distribution systems. Even a marginal increase in transformer efficiency can significantly reduce CO2 emissions.The new EU ecodesign regulation covers small, medium and large power transformers used in electrical transmission and distribution networks, and for industrial applications. However, it does not apply to all transformer products; for example, single phase transformers are unaffected.The new legislation is intended to prevent high loss transformers from being installed in the EU, but the first phase (Tier 1) of efficiency requirements that come into play in July 2015 are only the start. By 2021, a Tier 2 standard will require transformer designs to be about 10 percent more energy efficient than Tier 1.