Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Occupancy sensors that adjust lights and temperature
to match need are available;
Integrated system design should become the norm: for
example, don
t just ask if double glazed windows reduce
the electricity bills, but ask also if you can use smaller
and less costly heating and air-conditioning systems;
'
More ef
cient electronics of all kinds needs to be
introduced
standby power in all sorts of electronics
(called vampires) consumes lots of unnecessary energy.
-
Most of these improvements have costs that are paid
back in only a few years from the value of the energy
saved. The management consulting company McKinsey
& Company released a report in
that looked at the
cost of reducing CO
emissions and found that many of
the improvements in the building sector have negative
costs in the sense that the savings outweigh the cost of
the improvement [
]. Other studies have reached similar
conclusions.
Figure
is from a paper that looks specif-
ically at the building sector [
.
].
is called a conservation supply curve and
shows that all of the areas indicated have costs per kilo-
watt-hour less than the average cost of the electricity and
hence save money. The total electricity saving is about
Figure
.
Quads of primary
energy, more than half of the required reduction in use to
meet the goal of no increase in energy in the building
sector from now to
Quads per year which translates to
.
.
hours you will have to buy
incandescent bulbs at a cost of
$
compared with
for the one
fluorescent. The total saving is
, so why
$
$
does anyone buy the incandescent light bulbs?
