Microgeneration Outlook - Design for Micro-Combined Cooling, Heating and Power Systems - page 7

Fig. 4 UN map of GHG emissions [ 28 ]
[ 26 ]. However, the awareness and care for sustainable development have increased
in the past years due to climate changes and air pollution. The leading polluters
(Fig. 4 ) are the GHG with their main component carbon dioxide (CO 2 ).
Mitigating greenhouse gases emissions is an important challenge as they are at
the root of climate changes and most air pollution [ 27 ].
In a global context, the European Union contributes (Fig. 5 ) with around 11 % of
the total GHG emissions each year [ 29 ].
These emissions are shared among the MS and come from different sectors
(Fig. 6 ). The need to reduce GHG emissions is obvious for the improvement of the
environment contributing to sustainable development.
Moreover, such decreases are binding through both internationals agreements
(Kyoto Protocol for instance) and European policies and legislation. An option to
successfully reduce GHG emissions is exploiting the full potential of RES. In this
sense, European efforts are being made to increase the share of RES in the energy
production (Fig. 7 ).
Nonetheless, the share of RES in the energy consumption is halved (Fig. 8 ) and
the energy mix differ across the MS (Fig. 9 ).
Between the energy production and energy consumption, a large share of energy
is used by the households and services sectors, as noticed from Fig. 10 .
The potential for these sectors to reduce GHG emissions is not yet fully tapped,
though significant improvements are in progress (Fig. 11 ). Consequently, in these
sectors microgeneration systems can be/are applied and can have a fundamental
position to help decrease the GHG emissions.