Rethinking Energy Conservation:Introduction
| In May, 2010, the ECO released its first Annual Report on the progress of activities in Ontario to reduce or make more efficient use of electricity, natural gas, propane, oil and transportation fuels. Click here for more information on this report, including videos and communications materials. | |||||
Contents |
The Benefits of Energy Conservation
Energy conservation policy should not merely reflect Ontario’s energy objectives. It may also serve as a tool for achieving the province’s other long-term goals and be employed to pursue the Government of Ontario’s broader agenda. Such secondary purposes may include improving energy security, increasing societal resilience to global shifts, supporting the creation of a conserver society, reducing the emission of greenhouse gases, improving air quality, and generating both individual and societal economic returns.
For example, conservation can contribute to the province’s energy security, especially for a jurisdiction like Ontario that does not produce significant amounts of hydrocarbon fuels itself. Ontario has committed to stop burning coal to generate electricity and to expand the use of lower-carbon alcohol-based fuels in transportation. The province will be challenged to fully replace fossil fuels with alternate energy sources, especially at today’s levels of hydrocarbon consumption. Accordingly, conservation is an obvious way to reduce a reliance on fossil fuels.
Conservation contributes to societal resilience. Reduced consumption makes Ontario less vulnerable to unforeseen or difficult to control events, like major price swings in fuels and extreme weather events associated with climate change. Behavioural actions taken at the level of the individual can create a conserver society. This cultural shift toward greater conservation by individuals in their daily behaviour, supported by technology that increases energy efficiency, leads to conservation improvements in the built environment. It also reduces the need for adding new energy supply infrastructure, addressing the issue of local opposition to the construction of new energy projects.
Capturing the environmental benefits of a “soft energy path” is more urgent than ever before. Energy conservation minimizes the degradation of the environment. Conservation reduces greenhouse gas emissions and improves air quality, as well as reducing land use impacts attributable to the extraction, production and delivery of energy.
Finally, economic savings can be realized by both the individual consumer and society overall. Expenditures on conservation are often lower than costs of supplying energy for individuals and organizations. The economic advantages of conservation become even more favourable when considering society as a whole, once externalities of energy supply are considered.
Conservation Terminology
Defining energy conservation is no simple matter. Terms such as “energy conservation, ” “energy efficiency” and “demand-side management” may mean different things to different people. These terms are not mutually exclusive. Energy conservation could include improvements in energy efficiency. Energy conservation or energy efficiency may be achieved through demand-side management (DSM) or demand response (DR) measures.
In general, this report uses these terms in the following context: energy conservation is the broadest or higher order term; energy efficiency has a strong technology focus; and demand-side management typically refers to programs offered by energy companies to encourage their customers to conserve.
The figure below outlines five categories of action that could be considered forms of energy conservation: improvements in energy efficiency, changes in consumer behaviour, shifts in demand response, fuel substitution, and distributed energy (supplying energy from on-site sources).
Energy Efficiency
Using technology to provide the same function or end-use service while using less energy. Examples include more efficient appliances, lighting or heating equipment.
Behaviour
Reducing energy consumption through behavioural or process changes, typically using existing technology. Examples include turning lights off, heating your home at a lower temperature, and carpooling.
Demand Response
Actions that temporarily reduce demand. Demand response may or may not result in the use of less energy, but does shift timing of use, inducing consumers to use energy at a different time or to interrupt their energy use. It is primarily associated with electricity consumption (e.g., time-of-use rates, load and cycling control equipment).
Fuel Substitution
Switching from one fuel source to another to perform a given service (e.g., switching from electricity to natural gas for home heating)
Distributed Energy
Supplying energy from an on-site source (e.g., providing a building’s electricity through rooftop solar panels). It is sometimes also referred to as customer-based generation. It includes self-generation, co-generation ,Combined Heat and Power, tri-generation and district energy systems, and sometimes focuses on the efficient use of energy at a community level.
Summary
There are differing views – among Ontario residents, energy agencies, environmental groups, energy companies and others – of the extent to which these five categories of action are relevant to their definition of conservation. One might not include some of the categories at all because they do not lead to an overall reduction in energy consumption (demand response) or are based on adding supply (fuel switching and self-generation). A differing view would maintain that demand response or distributed energy is conservation because they reduce reliance on the centralized energy delivery infrastructure. An individual or societal concept of conservation ultimately depends on the goals and benefits, as outlined above, that serve as the rationale for pursuing conservation.
Government defines the broad social agenda and plays an important role in setting energy policy and building a culture of conservation. Therefore, it is problematic that the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure has not publicly stated its definition of conservation except in the context of electricity system planning. The ministry’s policy and actions advance all of the categories noted above. The ministry has publicly defined conservation, in the planning of the electricity system, to include elements of all of the five categories, noted in Figure 3.
However, the ministry’s goal and the view of the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) – the government’s agency responsible for planning to meet current and future power needs by procuring conservation resources and contracting for generation – on electricity conservation are strongly tied only to demand response for reducing peak demand on the centralized electricity grid.
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Citing This Article:
Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 2010. Annual Energy Conservation Progress Report, 2009 (Volume One): Rethinking Energy Conservation in Ontario. Toronto, ON : Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. pp. 11-13
