LEAN, CLEAN & GREEN

One of the many enjoyable things I do is support London City University’s Energy Technology and Economics MSc course.

Last month, I helped run a three day lecturing module on ‘Energy Policies & Economics’ [see footnote 1]. As you would expect, the masters’ students were very keen to find out about differing views on the best strategies for energy and climate change.     

What’s the best strategy that delivers both commercially and for a low carbon future?

This is something I’m asked quite often and I thought I would use this opportunity to set out my own view

Discover what I think.

It’s got to be an On-Demand (consumer) driven strategy – for best value all round

I personally subscribe to what I call the ‘London’ strategy [see footnote 2] for a low carbon future; namely making it ‘Lean’, ‘Clean’ & ‘Green’, in that order;  but in the context of it also being ‘Local’ and ‘Global’ for best value all round.

Step 1 – Make it LOCAL

Like most things in life, we are all looking for best value from our services, facilities and infrastructure, and this includes energy.  We need to think about service, cost, environmental impact and reputation (although other objectives may also apply).

Judging this best value can only be done well locally, from the consumer’s perspective.  We need to recognise that energy efficiency and (carbon) is therefore a user behavioural issue and that effective change has to be driven at this local level first.

This first step means creating a green spark and challenging local people and staff to get involved; which creates lots of local initiatives in lots of different places, all at the same time. 

Step 2 – Make it GLOBAL

For best value, globally, all this local action needs to be coordinated and harmonised in a strategic way.  Before empowering everyday champions to get on with it and ramp up momentum, you need to set some ground rules.

  • Within a large organisation, we set up simple tracking systems (with guidance) that help prioritise and manage everyone’s effort (and make it easy for everyone involved).
  • For society in general, I support initiatives such as emissions trading to help us do this.

However, I don’t subscribe to a world where we spend all our time counting carbon; our primary focus needs to be on local energy and carbon saving action.

Step 3 – LEAN

To be effective, commercial and sustainable, action for demand-side energy saving should always be prioritised first. 

  • Demand-side energy saving action not only saves carbon but also cuts costs (we also always look for the ‘Win Win’, looking to improve customer service as well).
  • When compared to other options, demand-side management is nearly always the most cost effective way to reduce carbon emissions as part of a wider strategy.
  • And this effort right-sizes (and reduces the cost of) any subsequent investments in supply infrastructure.

The Carbon Trust (in the UK) tells us that the average business wastes 10 to 20% of the energy they buy.  In my experience, once you get the right people involved i.e., those who understand customer demand and their perception of best value, it is quite easy to find the 10 to 20% savings – and once you have delivered on these, you find there’s at least another easy 10 to 20% savings to be had.

Step 4 – CLEAN & GREEN

Once we’ve effectively understood demand, we can then think about matching it with low carbon supply.

Energy supply needs to be flexible enough to meet demand in the most cost effective way, on a national (and international) scale.  In recent years, we’ve generally known the answer to this for the UK; it’s been gas (especially when linked with good quality combined heat and power).

Going forward though, for a zero carbon future, our strategy needs to (quickly) become more and more renewable.   And renewables work best when they are located locally, near to demand, and when we are able to store the energy.   For best effect, local energy supply projects mean actively involving local consumers (as key stakeholders).  As their main focus is on their demand requirements, energy supply should be intrinsically linked to user demand behaviours.  And future renewable gas solutions are one way of doing this.

I must admit, in my ideal scenario, nuclear doesn’t have a great role to play as it’s not generally seen as a local solution, is typically not something many people want in their back yard and is intolerably inflexible to consumer demand and a supply mix with (intermittent) renewables. 

But that means there’s an enormous amount for the renewables and supply sector to do in this country to bridge the energy supply gap that’s around the corner!

LOCAL – GLOBAL – LEAN – CLEAN & GREEN

I know many people believe it’s easiest to forget about the complexity of demand-side issues, and consumer behaviour, and just concentrate on decarbonising the supply networks.  I often hear “energy demand issues are hard to understand”, “it’s not sexy”, “we’d prefer the big infrastructure projects”. 

Yes, this type of strategy would reduce our carbon emissions, but I would argue it’s generally not the most effective commercial approach.  Focusing our efforts on customer demand not only allows us to eliminate all that avoidable waste out there first (and there’s a lot of it!) but also helps to engineer our supply solutions to match our needs, integrating supply and demand strategies in the most efficient and cost effective way as it should be.

This is why we call our approach On-Demand energy management.

TO DISCOVER FOR YOURSELF
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Footnotes

1 for the City University module, we were also very lucky to have Professors Gordon MacKerron (who originally put together the module) and Professor Jim Watson (both from the Sussex Energy Group), Steve Argent (from Arup) and Martin Fry (City University’s visiting Professor for the course) all supporting this three day module.

2 Of course London isn’t the only place that uses this approach; I call it this mainly because it was the Greater London Assembly (GLA) approach that we used to great effect when I was working for Heathrow Airport.

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