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May 2021

ENERGY EFFICIENCY

Building insulation: Is hydrogen our ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card?

When playing the board game Monopoly, a coveted draw is the ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card, which allows players to leave jail without paying a fine. Some proponents of hydrogen argue that the fuel is a Get Out of Jail Free card for lowering emissions from buildings without investing in insulation. Jan Rosenow explains why Europe should focus efforts on proven solutions, such as insulation and energy efficiency, rather than looking to expensive technologies to decarbonise buildings.

   
   

CLIMATE POLICY

Sweetening the deal: Enticing people towards heat decarbonisation

Deliberately making electricity more expensive for customers than fossil gas, oil, and coal is like taxing water and subsidising sugary drinks; there is no real incentive for decarbonising heat. In an article from Euractiv, Samuel Thomas writes that it’s time to ‘sweeten the deal’ for electricity customers and entice them towards clean heat, similar to how regulators steered consumers away from sugary beverages.

   
   

TARIFF DESIGN

Dynamic and just: Network tariff design for the future

Poland has the highest wholesale electricity prices in Europe. They stem from the large share of coal in the Polish energy mix, high carbon emission allowance prices and little competition in the energy market. As the country increases its renewable generation capacity and begins to move towards electrifying heat and transport, the need to update network tariff design grows urgent. Forum Energii and RAP share key principles for reforming network tariffs to drive the energy transition.

   
   
FURTHER NOTES

ELECTRIFICATION ACADEMY

The ‘magical moment’ is now: Decarbonise heat in the EU

The heating and cooling sector accounts for 50% of the EU’s final energy consumption. Switching to electrified heat would thus markedly reduce emissions, even with the current power mix. In today's Electrification Academy webinar, Georg Thomaßen of Agora Energiewende will discuss the power of electrification and renewable energy to decarbonise heat.

Register now


WEBINAR

Power system resilience: Lessons from two recent events

In January, Continental Europe’s power system was split into two areas due to outages along the transmission network. Fortunately, the consequences were not dire — unlike the situation in the U.S. state of Texas during February’s massive power outage. Join RAP and REKK Foundation as we explore lessons learned from these events.

Register now


GLOBAL INSIGHTS

Non-wires alternatives can boost reliability at lower cost

Regulators concerned about the expense of transitioning to clean energy can save costs with nontraditional solutions. Instead of upgrading existing infrastructure, non-wires alternatives such as end-use energy efficiency, demand response, energy storage and distributed generation are often less costly. More from RAP’s India programme in Foresight Climate & Energy.

Read more


RAP IN THE MEDIA

“The UK has some of the leakiest homes in Europe.” Jan Rosenow on the need for energy efficiency in buildings.

   
 


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