Going green in hibernation mode

Households and offices today offer the biggest potential for energy savings in Europe, according to the European Commission. Buildings are estimated to use up one-third of total EU energy consumption.

Legislation from 2001 imposes tough energy efficiency standards on new buildings and renovations for European buildings with floor space over 1,000 square metres. Imple-menting the directive is set to save Europe 40 megatonnes of oil equiva-lent between now and 2020, but the Commission says this is not enough.

The new action plan promises an EU-wide strategy for very low energy houses by the end of 2008 and suggests extending the current directive in 2009 to cover smaller buildings.

Industry specialists are keen to show how this could work.

Better insulation has led to huge improvements in building energy efficiency since the 1970s. The European Association of Insulation Manufacturers (EURIMA) has no doubt that more can be done.

EURIMA says extending the buildings directive to smaller buildings could save member states €8 billion a year by 2010, rising to €14.5bn by 2015. At the same time, Europe would save the equivalent of 600,000 barrels of oil a day.

A draft EURIMA study shows how this can be done. The insulation lobbyists claim that "awareness of the need to act is high, what is missing is practical information about how to renovate a building and the organisational support to deliver improvements".

Tax breaks and more hands-on support - for example through specialist help centres - are recommended to encourage more energy efficient buildings. EURIMA also recommends national action plans on the best way to improve the energy efficiency of buildings in 25 member states.

The European Association of Flat Glass Manufacturers adds that Europe could emit 140m tonnes less CO2 a year by fitting low emission double glazing to its buildings. It calls on governments to make low emission double glazing compulsory for all new buildings and renovations.

Industry groups also have ideas of ways to save energy inside buildings. Computer hardware giant Hewlett-Packard (HP) says utility bills in homes and businesses across Europe could be slashed by using the most up to date computers and printers.

If 12 computer owners enable the power management features on their computers, says HP, the energy saved over one year would be equivalent to the energy used by a car. Power management features include reducing the computer screen intensity and using the machine’s ‘hibernation’ mode.

HP is confident that it can keep energy demand down even as computers become more and more common: "Even if the rate of technology use is growing," says HP environmental strategy manager Zoe McMahon, "efficiency rates are enough to negate that".

Even the humble light bulb has a role to play. According to industry representatives ELC Lighting, if all lighting across Europe was switched from energy inefficient to the latest efficient technology, it would save €4.3bn, 28 million tonnes of CO2 and more than 50 million barrels of oil every year.

Households and offices today offer the biggest potential for energy savings in Europe, according to the European Commission. Buildings are estimated to use up one-third of total EU energy consumption.