The high price of wasted energy

3 November 2009 | Posted inBlog News & Updates

The high price of wasted energy

I have been attending a conference for the last couple of days, Sustainable Energy for the World: Smart Solutions in Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency. Most sessions have been at the World Bank or Inter-American Development Bank so far. Under discussion is lending, financing, equity investments in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, etc. for renewable energy (RE) and – RARELY – energy efficiency (EE). There are some success stories, but most representatives of these entities feel like it is too hard to find tangible EE projects. Besides, everyone knows how sexy wind farms and biodiesel facilites and solar PV installations look, right?

Three Gorges Dam

So why does it matter if there aren’t a lot of really good EE projects to fund? For one thing, Dr. Stephen Chu (new head of US Department of Energy) says that new US refrigerator standards save as much energy every year as the infamous Three Gorges Dam in China produces. One of these energy strategies was much cheaper to implement and didn’t displace millions of people. Can you guess which one?

And for another thing, it is a heck of a lot cheaper to save energy than to make it. There is a saying here on Capitol Hill that “Energy Efficiency is the cheapest form of Renewable Energy” for good reason. Check out how much it costs to install new power (per US Energy Information Administration data). Solar costs $5694 per kW. Nuclear costs $ 2475 per kW. Hydro costs $1551 per kW. Coal costs $1534 per kW. Wind costs $1434 per kW. Natural Gas costs $717 per kW. Diesel costs $400 per kW. Hydro retrofits cost $600-700 per kW. Energy Efficiency costs $200-250 per kW. It’s kind of a big deal.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 3:56 pm and is filed under Blog News & Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.