The Iea, International Energy Agency, during the presentation of its Energy Efficiency Market Report 2013, underlined that the best fuel is energy efficiency, i.e. the efficiency obtained from consumption savings (in short, from avoided consumption).
From an economic point of view, between 1974 and 2010, energy efficiency saved 32 billion tons of oil equivalent, if it had not been implemented in the world, 65% more primary energy would have been consumed (data from 2010).
Studies of this type of economy began late, but according to the IEA, in 2011 alone, investments in efficiency ranged between 147 and 300 billion dollars, a value equivalent to the annual cost of all the fossil fuels used to produce electricity, and this is still much lower than the net consumption subsidies for fossil fuels ($523 billion in 2011).
The IEA also stressed that the potential of energy efficiency is far from being fully exploited. In the residential sector we are at just 20% of potential, in industry just above 40%.
The search for greater efficiency is closely linked to technological development and its contribution, as noted by the IEA, has always been relevant, even before the attention to CO2 emissions and the development of renewable energies. But even efficiency cannot be considered a panacea. Perhaps the most important thing is knowing how to evaluate where the healthy slimming of consumption ends and where the consumption of the economy begins.
