Economists all seem to agree: after this pandemic, the world will never be the same again. Somebody says that growth will slow down, somebody says that resources will simply be allocated elsewhere. One question strongly insists and it is the one related to energy. Will consumers and investors move towards an era of responsible investment (RI), in activities that pursue the typical objectives of financial management while also taking into account environmental and social aspects?
The Paris-based International Energy Agency, in its annual World Energy Outloo report, wrote that the answer to COVID-19 could “reshape the future of energy” over the next few years.
“The COVID-19 crisis – we read – caused more turbulence than any other recent event in history, leaving scars that will remain for the coming years. COVID-19 unleashed a crisis of exceptional ferocity in a lot of countries, all around the world… the crisis is still going on today and its consequences for the future of world energy remain very uncertain.
According to the Agency’s Executive Director, Fatih Birol, “solar will become the new king of the world’s electricity markets… according to today’s plans, it is set to set new diffusion records in each of the years after 2022”.
The International Energy Agency also predicts that demand for coal will no longer return to pre-COVID-19 levels, affecting energy consumption by less than 20% of the total by 2040, for the first time since the Industrial Revolution. In particular, oil demand growth will start to slow down after 2030. It will remain “vulnerable to the main economic uncertainties caused by the pandemic”.
According to the IEA, demand for natural gas is expected to fall by 3% this year, the strongest decline since the 1930s, and then recover over the next decade, thanks to growth in emerging economies.
Renewable energies, however, seem to be the only forms of energy that will grow this year.
And the focus on energy is not only related to fuels or their direct use. Going into the small of Italy, for example, in the period 2016-2019, according to the Annual Report on Energy Certification of Buildings of ENEA and CTI (Italian Thermotechnical Committee), buildings with high energy performance increased in Italy, from about 7% to 10% of the total, thanks to the contribution of major renovations and new buildings.
Also food production and other industries benefited from the energy efficiency of the lines: entrepreneurs invested on savings and efficiency of their plants.
These trends, in short, were already in place before the COVID-19 and it seems that in the next future they will tend to manifest themselves more and more.
Vuototecnica has been working for several years, in collaboration with manufacturers in major industrial sectors, for greater energy savings, directly and indirectly supporting green economy and efficiency initiatives. Vacuum is a naturally green solution.
To learn more about Vuototecnica’s work in this direction and find your energy efficiency partner, please contact the technical office at: www.vuototecnica.net
