Solar and wind power is growing worldwide, but so is electricity consumption: as a result, renewables are often only added to the energy mix, rather than replacing fossil fuels.
Reducing energy demand would make net zero more achievable, but it recieves far less attention than decarbonisation efforts. This may be due to a perception that managing energy demand would be politically unpopular, requiring governments to make radical interventions into people’s lifestyles and spending.
Oliver Broad, Senior Research Fellow at University College London, tells Alasdair that such fears are unfounded. His team’s research found that the UK could reduce energy demand by 52% without new tech or overly disruptive societal change, and has worked with policymakers and public focus groups to demonstrate political acceptability.
That’s an interesting concept, sounds similar to the german WG (Wohngemeinschaft), but that’s, to my knowledge, also mostly used by younger people that are still studying or similar.
And since we’re already straying off topic, germany “recently” introduced a law where you have to limit rooftop solar production to 60% of the installed peak power (you’re not allowed to feed more than that back to the grid). Now I’m wondering whether I should start mining bitcoin at my parents place, despite my disgust for bitcoin. I’ll have to see whether I can get some E-waste to put together an appropriate rig, I’m definitely not getting new hardware for that, if at all.
Well this was a few years ago when mining bitcoin on GPUs was more practical. Still just feels like a waste of energy though.
How does that law work, is it just a limit on how much you can put into the grid, or how much you can generate at all?
Hot tub could be a more enjoyable use for the excess energy. I struggle really to think of much more that would benefit from a lot of excess power.