Steps towards a 2000 Watt-Society: Challenges for the Technological Development in Switzerland - Analysis of Technological and Organisational Long-Term Potentials

Investigators
Eberhard Jochem, Daniel Spreng, Marco Semadeni

Partners
ETHZ (Ph. Rudolf v. Rohr, K. Hungerbühler); EPFL (D. Favrat); PSI (A. Wolkaun), EMPA (M. Zimmermann)

Time Frame
March 2002 to December 2002

Funding
novatlantis - Nachhaltigkeit im ETH-Bereich

Abstract
"Steps towards a 2000 Watt-Society" is a research project of a team of Swiss engineering, natural, and social scientists. The project - a pre-study, carried out in 2002 - aims at deriving recommendations for research and development on the path to a '2000 watt-society', i.e. an annual primary energy consumption 65 GJ/cap. The pre-study aims to clarify priorities of technical and entrepreneurial innovations, methodical issues, and organisational matters of the planned main study. There are four key tasks of the pre-study: the first task is to identify the technological areas essential for achieving a 2000 Watt-society until the mid of this century (e.g. by low energy and passive solar buildings, low energy cars, trucks and air planes, new industrial processes, improved material efficiency and IT-technologies, intensification of product use, entrepreneurial innovations). Second the project intends to evaluate progress potentials in research and innovation in these technological areas and to provide concepts to assess low energy technologies. Third, it intends to identify advanced researchers in these technological areas for future collaboration. Finally, an international workshop was held in September 2002 to discuss the preliminary results condensed in a White Paper on R&D suggestions.

1 English Summary

2 Project Description

Globally, the energy efficiency of converting primary energy to useful energy is estimated at 37 % at present. Moreover, considering the work capacity (that is, the exergy) of primary energy compared with exergy of useful energy according to the second law of thermodynamics, the efficiency of today's energy systems in industrialised countries is less than 15 %, and in developing countries even less. But energy efficiency can also be improved - and energy losses avoided - during the often overlooked step between useful energy and energy services. These losses amount to 30 to 40 % of primary energy use.

Fig. 1. The Energy System from Services to Useful, Final and Primary Energy, Switzerland 2000

Energy plays a major role in today's unsustainable development, in particular with regard to climate change due to the fact that 80% of the global primary energy use is based on fossil fuels. Therefore, the Swiss Council of the Federal Institute of Technology promoted the vision of a 2000 Watt society by the mid of the 21th cen-tury, which would reduce today's per capita energy use by two thirds to 65 GJ per capita and year despite of additional future economic growth.

The objective
Because of the relevance of this vision for research and development in this decade, the objective of the pre-study is to identify most promising fields of technology and behavioural research that should be looked at in more detail in a main study envisaged for the period 2003 to 2005. The following analytical steps have been taken: Identification of important technology fields and behavioural aspects, which is not only important for the long-term sustainable development in Switzerland, but also for a long-term export potential for the domestic producers of technology; development of a preliminary concept of a methodological approach for an ex-ante evaluation of these efficiency potentials, and identification of advanced research groups active in these technology fields situated in Switzerland or abroad.

According to the pre-study proposal, the preliminary results of the pre-study have been validated and enriched during an workshop on September 9/10th 2002 with experts from the worldwide research community.

3 Results

The saving potentials, given in relative and absolute terms in the various sectors, technological fields and behavioural areas cannot be added because of mutual interference of several efficiency improvements along the energy chain. But nevertheless, assuming substantial efficiency improvements of the Swiss conversion sector due to partial substitution of nuclear power plants after 2020 by decentralised inte-grated systems, there is some indication that the total necessary efficiency gains in the final energy sectors required for the vision of a 2000 W/cap society may be realised under very optimistic assumptions of further technological progress in all sectors of the economy and the residential sector. Of course, this estimate is highly hypothetical, but indicates that the vision is not out of any theoretical probability. Results in the individual fields can be summarised as follows:

Major savings of more than 200 PJ can be expected from the building sector by new insulation techniques of walls, roofs, windows and basements, tighter and solar gains adapted construction of houses and buildings.

A similar reduction of final energy use may be achievable in the transportation sector, particularly from the car sector, by lighter vehicles and substantially improved propulsion systems, better logistics and transferability between the different modes; still increasing mobility by air transport may diminish the saving potentials.

Smaller and less clear potentials are possible in industry, in the commercial and agricultural sector as well as cross cutting technologies such as information and communication technology, but also by improved material efficiency and substitution, recycling, and intensification of product use, the latter demonstrating that energy services from vehicles, machines or appliances can be differently organised and will, hence, change the demand for energy services.

Finally, organisational changes and entrepreneurial innovations or policies influencing behaviour and even lifestyles, have substantial energy saving potentials by realising economically attractive, but not perceived efficiency potentials.

Most relevant obstacles to R&D or to the application of technologies to be developed are shortly mentioned, as they may hint to application risks and/or to the need of further technical solutions to alleviate them. With regard of the main study, priorities have been set on the basis of absolute energy saving potential, homogenity of the technology concerned, the export potential for Swiss technology producers, and the R&D risks involved.
Some first recommendations are given on the basis of the pre-study (priority setting for R&D in a small country like Switzerland, a continuous ongoing process of evaluation of the opportunities and the comparative advantages of the Swiss research and innovation system, policy change that accepts energy efficiency R&D policy as a part of an innovation policy towards a sustainable development, not only for Switzerland, but globally).
Finally, it is suggested that the main study, which aims to analyse in more detail the potentials of a 2000 W per capita society, promising technologies and the most ad-vanced research groups and institutions in these fields, should be carried out between 2003 and 2005. It should cover the technological and organisational areas identified in the pre-study and should be conducted by a broad team of directly in-volved scientists of the Swiss scientific community, taking advantage of the many formal and informal co-operations with researchers and research institutions in other countries.

4 Publications

Jochem, E.; Spreng, D.; Favrat, D.; Rudolph von Rohr, P.; Hungerbühler, K., Wokaun, A.; Zimmermann, M.: Steps towards a 2000 Watt Society a White Paper. Input paper to an international workshop on September 9 and 10, 2002, Zurich.

5 Presentations