The Australian Alliance to Save Energy (A2SE) is an independent, not-for-profit, coalition of business, government and environmental leaders formed to drive research and advance the efficient use of energy in Australia. A2SE has appointed a new full time General Manager and established formal links with a growing list of international partners, giving the Alliance enormous reach and enabling it to be an exchange of knowledge and international best practice. A2SE has also strengthened its partnership with the Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) at the University of Technology Sydney, and with anchor sponsorship from the Australian Government’s Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency will be hosting the first Australian Summer Study on Energy Efficiency and Decentralised Energy from 29 February to 2 March 2012.
The Local Government and Public Sector Building Maintenance and Management Conference 2011 will cover a wide range of topics including in the theme “Water and Energy Efficient Buildings: Towards More Sustainable Buildings”. To achieve more sustainable buildings it is now crucially important to consider the water and energy efficiency of buildings not just in their initial construction, but also in their operation and maintenance. Topics in this theme include:
The European Citizens Climate Cup (ECCC) is an energy saving competition between households throughout 10 European countries. From April 2011 to April 2012, households are invited to join the competition and use the online toolkit (ESA) to monitor their household energy consumption against that of previous years. This website helps provide all participants with information and tips and tricks on how they can save energy in their home and the ESA will calculate and demonstrate the savings they make. At the end of the competition, there will be an ‘Energy Saver of the Year’ – the individual or household that has made the greatest energy savings.
Sustainable House Day is celebrating its 10th year, and the event will continue to showcase some of Australia’s most sustainable homes to the public as millions of Australians continue to embrace renewable energy, recycling, and other practices suitable to their lifestyles.
Global Wind Day is a worldwide event that occurs annually on 15 June. It is a day for discovering wind, its power and the possibilities it holds to change our world. It is also a day for discovery of the work that has already begun by pioneers around the world. In more than 75 countries around the world, wind farms are in operation, generating energy from a clean and renewable source.
A double-glazing buyers guide in the latest issue of the Alternative Technology Association (ATA) ReNew: technology for a renewable future magazine takes a look at window and door glass insulating options. Windows often make or break the look of a home, but there’s a lot more to them than aesthetics. The importance of reducing heat flows through windows and doors should not be overlooked. In fact, a single pane plain glass window is not much better than a hole in the wall when it comes to its insulating ability.
Cities can only exist because of the highly developed systems which underlie them, ensuring that energy, clean water and so on are moved efficiently from producer to user, and that waste is removed. The urgent need to make the way that these services are provided more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable means that these systems are in a state of transition. Shaping Urban Infrastructures presents research and analysis of the intermediaries that underpin the transitions that are taking place within urban infrastructures, showing how intermediaries emerge, the role that they play in key sectors – including energy, water, waste and building – and what impact they have on the governance of urban socio-technical networks.
The Pew Charitable Trusts report Who’s Winning the Clean Energy Race? documents the dawning of a new worldwide industry – clean energy – which has experienced investment growth of 230 percent since 2005. Accounting for more than 90 percent of worldwide finance and investment, G-20 countries dominate the clean energy landscape. As the country profiles in this report demonstrate, virtually all G-20 countries have seen investments grow by more than 50 percent over the last five years. China, which has set ambitious targets for wind, biomass and solar energy, for the first time took the top spot within the G-20 and globally for overall clean energy finance and investment in 2009. The United States slipped to second place.
Investment leader China may double its solar power capacity goal amid rising doubts about the safety of nuclear power in the wake of the Japanese crisis. China, the world’s largest solar panel exporter, is likely to boast 10 gigawatts (gW) of solar power capacity by 2015, up from the current 1 gW and a doubling of its existing target.