Energy efficiency necessitates major financial investment, and an energy crisis situation is the ideal setting for it to take place, due to the high costs connected with energy supply. However, fossil fuels should not be shunned because they enabled the global industrial revolution.
“Energy efficiency needs money to be produced. Without them, it doesn’t happen. The fossil fuel revolution is an intensely polluting one, but it is also the one that brought us to the present moment of civilization. It’s important to be aware of this when we ostracize and when we talk about climate emergency and climate disaster,” said Andrei Ceclan, university professor and president of the Society of Energy Auditors and Managers in Romania (SAMER).
The reasons why energy efficiency is necessary are the high costs of energy bills and the goal is the greatest possible independence of the consumer from energy suppliers. Another reason is the energy transition and the elimination of carbon from industry and society, a process that must be carried out in a realistic way.
“If by 2021 the energy market was completely liberalized, currently we are in a fully regulated market because we are all in a market with a capped and compensated price. This means that we are all vulnerable, because if the state runs out of money tomorrow, we will no longer be able to afford to pay our energy bills, given current prices. We want to be more energy efficient in order to be less vulnerable to energy in relation to those who produce it and deliver it to us. Another reason why we want energy efficiency is climate neutrality,” said Ceclan.
Because renewable energy sources have a much lower energy density than traditional ones, on the order of hundreds or thousands, much higher quantities of energy will be required to replace current fossil sources, at least in the context of Europe’s decarbonization ambition. Along the way, it should not be forgotten that both coal and oil and natural gas have been used intensively for periods of about 60 years, but now policymakers want to replace them with green energies in a much shorter 25 years-period of time. This represents a significant challenge. But at the same time, it is an additional means to become more energy efficient.
Dr. Andrei Ceclan holds a course dedicated to energy efficiency – “Energy efficiency, from opportunity to reality” – within the project “Energy efficiency for the energy transition”, organized by the Energynomics communication platform, the Romanian Fund for Energy Efficiency – FREE and the Directorate for Energy Efficiency within the Ministry of Energy. The project is financed by the Norway Grants 2014-2021, within the program “Energy efficiency for the energy transition” in Romania.
The purpose of the program is to sensitize the general public, the industrial environment and the public authorities regarding energy efficiency and renewable energy, to inform, educate, empower the decision-makers within the public authorities and companies in Romania, as well as the general public, mainly the young generation, to take positive actions to contribute to the green energy transition, through energy efficiency and the safe integration of renewable energies.