A new whitepaper from Danfoss, the Danish family-controlled engineering group, highlights the dramatic increase in global demand for energy and argues that, without urgent action to curb energy demand, the build out of renewables will be insufficient to meet the needs of a growing population. Statistics show that the current build out of renewables won’t be even near sufficient if we don’t at the same time curb our demand for energy, referring to the drastic acceleration in demand for cooling in the Global South as a case in point, stated the Danfoss release.

Kim Fausing, President & CEO of Danfoss, called for an urgent need for climate leaders to include energy efficiency measures and electrification in immediate future after the conclusion of COP27, held in Egypt from November 6-18, 2022. “The world, particularly Europe, is following a one-sided approach to the energy crisis, focusing solely on the supply of energy, not enough on demand. For every dollar spent on energy efficiency, we can avoid spending more than 2 dollars on energy supply. Technology is available, and energy efficiency solutions can be used today across all sectors. If we don’t act now to address the growing demand for energy it will be extremely difficult and more expensive to meet the Paris Agreement goal of staying below 1.5 degrees warming,” he said.

Ravichandran Purushothaman, President, Danfoss India region, added, “Primarily of all the solutions to accelerate India's green transition that exists in the world today, energy efficiency is the fastest, the easiest, and the most impactful. It can deliver nearly 40 per cent of the total emission reductions needed for us to reach net zero target. Danfoss’ whitepaper highlights the need for urgent action to address the growing demand for energy. With energy crisis looming high in many nations, rapid action on energy is both necessary and achievable for our sustainable transition to a carbon-neutral future. Danfoss aims to support this transition by being a preferred decarbonization partner, who also leads by example with its strong internal Climate targets and achievements across the globe.”

Need for urgent focus on demand side
The whitepaper, titled ‘The neglected demand side of the green equation’, delves into the details of how energy efficiency is an enabler of electrification. To reach net zero, experts agree that we must substitute fossil energy with renewable sources and electrify everything across all sectors.

However, to grow the role of electricity in the energy mix it is a fundamental, yet overlooked, fact that we need to reduce energy demand first. Green energy comes in peaks and is used in peaks. Energy efficiency shaves these peaks and reduces the systemic cost of electrifying.

Still the world’s buildings, infrastructure, transport networks and vehicles continue to operate with great inefficiencies, wasting energy and heat on a grand scale. This new whitepaper tackles this problem head on by providing clear and practical policy recommendations for fixing the currently unbalanced equation, and by highlighting the key data and figures that should inform collective decision making on these issues. For example:

Kim Fausing said, “In short, if we don’t curb our demand for energy, the build-out of renewables will not be even near sufficient. We simply will not have enough green energy to meet the demands of a growing population. One overlooked fact is that renewable energy comes in peaks and is used in peaks. Energy efficiency allows us to shave these peaks, for instance by reusing the excess heat from industries, supermarkets and data centers to heat our homes. Energy efficiency is fundamental for a full electrification of our society."

He added, “Despite recent encouraging measures being taken in the EU, the current investment levels in energy efficiency are far from enough to meet our global climate goals. Governments have made headlines with mid-century targets but to a large extent failed to implement the immediate solutions we have at hand. As US President Biden said at COP26 in Glasgow last year, the eye of history is watching. It’s time to step up, act and enshrine minimum energy efficiency requirements into law. The greenest energy is the energy you don’t use, but in the current energy crisis, it’s also by far the cheapest, and it’s imperative if we want to meet the Paris Agreement goal.”