This article announces the adoption of harmonised minimum energy performance standards for air conditioners and refrigerators in the 16 member countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). It also explains the process by which these harmonised standards were developed and adopted.
This article explores how the Central American Integration System (SICA) has helped lead the way to improve energy efficiency in appliances at the regional level, and the opportunities that further harmonisation could generate.
The average lifespan of a building is 50 years, so the design of buildings that are constructed now will have an effect on energy consumption in our cities until well into the 2070s. This article presents the most effective options for cities to set mandatory minimum energy performance standards for buildings, to prevent locking in … Continue reading “How to set energy efficiency requirements for new buildings”
This webpage provides an introduction to smart grids, an overview of recent progress and recommendations for governments and utilities.
This explainer by the German Heinrich Böll Foundation provides a quick overview of green hydrogen, the way it is produced, the role it can play in the energy transition, and the main challenges.
This report highlights the importance of sector coupling as a key source of flexibility that cities can explore to stabilise power grid operations when integrating high shares of variable renewable energy sources. It presents a range of sector coupling opportunities available for use in cities, including self-consumption of variable RE sources, the role of thermal … Continue reading “Sector Coupling in Facilitating Integration of Variable Renewable Energy in Cities”
This report highlights the economic, social and environmental benefits that energy and transport sector-coupling and a transition towards EV- and RE-based, efficient systems can create in small island settings, and provides tools for the planning of such a transition.
This report focuses on how green hydrogen and fuel cell technologies could be initially rolled out in developing countries by presenting a series of applications that could be initially deployed in some locations and later scaled up.
This report challenges the prevailing narrative that green hydrogen is primarily a product for export from renewable-rich and industry-poor countries; rather, it underscores green hydrogen’s potential as a catalyst for sustainable development within developing countries that can contribute to economic growth, environmental sustainability and social progress.
This paper presents a value chain approach to identify priority areas for developing national hydrogen strategies, focussing on emerging and developing economies.