CCC warning & Energy Consumption: Comment Mike Hughes: Zone President, UK & Ireland, Schneider Electric
Posted by: electime 28th June 2018
The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) has provided a stern warning for the UK – we must intervene in energy management now or we will not meet our carbon reduction target of 80% by 2050.
Since the Climate Change Act was passed, the UK has established itself as a leader in decarbonisation. Yet, there is more work to be done now. We know that today, buildings are 80% inefficient, industry 60%, and infrastructure as a whole is just under 80% wasteful in its energy consumption.
Add to this that ships at berth in the UK’s ports generate more emissions than the entire bus transport network in the UK or 1.2 million diesel cars, we can see that the need to save energy is upon us. Thankfully, the UK government and industry as a whole has immediate solutions available for each of these issues but we must act quickly.
Looking deeper into the issue, we need to seriously consider that by 2025, 5bn people and 50bn devices are expected to be connected to the internet.
Reliable access to modern energy is what will be propelling those drones, driverless cars and factory robots to the heights of their performance and more than this, powering our burgeoning dependence on data could lead to major economic withdrawals if energy consumption to power data fails. This raises serious question regarding balancing the benefits of technology against the cost.
Close to 80% of all global carbon emissions come from energy generation, which means that finding sustainable energy solutions, quickly, is non-negotiable. The amount of generated data is astounding – 90% of data from the connected things in our lives was created over the last two years.
The future of efficiency and access to affordable energy lies in closely monitoring and adequately managing the growing reliance on IoT-connected devices.
Technology also provides us with the solutions to curbing our energy waste – these are within our grasp today and we must look to implement these immediately if we intend to retain our status as a global leader in decarbonisation but more importantly to ensure a sustainable future for the planet.
