If a law for energy savings that has existed for decades, is properly used, this will save one billion cubic meters of natural gas plus 5 billion kWh of electricity. This is apparent from a calculation commissioned by the Dutch Association for Sustainable Energy (NVDE). In this way, the Netherlands would be a quarter less dependent on Russian gas.
The passing on was carried out by the Utrecht energy agency Common Futures. It contains nine recommendations to make existing legislation more effective in the short term.
“The most important thing for us is that politicians pick up on this with great urgency and chase it, both nationally and via the regional environmental service,” NVDE director Olof van der Gaag told NU.nl. “This could help our energy independence, the climate and the national energy bill so immensely that it should now be the top priority. But it won’t work all of a sudden.”
Law is not enforced, therefore not complied with
To achieve climate goals and reduce dependence on Russian natural gas, compliance with the Environmental Management Act is actually low-hanging fruit. After all, the law costs no net money: it concerns a large package of saving measures, the required investments of which pay for themselves within five years at the latest, through lower energy costs.
Small and medium-sized companies have been obliged to implement such measures since 1993, and large industrial companies will soon be added. The problem is that compliance with this law is not effectively enforced, so that its saving potential is hardly used.
“The potential of the measures is not wrong, especially now that the law is being extended to large companies,” says energy expert Kees van der Keun, director of Common Futures. One billion cubic meters of natural gas is about 20 percent of the total import of Russian natural gas to the Netherlands in 2020 and 5 billion kWh is about 5 percent of the entire national annual electricity consumption.
Saving electricity is also saving gas
Since more than half of that electricity is generated in gas-fired power stations, the net gas saving is even greater: more than 1.5 billion cubic meters. In addition, compliance with the obligation to save for companies would quickly further reduce Dutch CO2 emissions, by about 4 million tons, Common Futures believes.
Last year TNO also calculated the potential for companies to comply with the Savings Act. They came out considerably lower: 750 million cubic meters of gas, and about 1 million tons of CO2. The difference lies in, among other things, the energy prices used, explains Van der Leun. “A measure that can quickly save a lot is the better adjustment of installations, which are often overlooked in investment plans. For example, consider air conditioning systems in offices that are left on outside working hours.”
The new calculation also looked closely at industrial companies that use a lot of energy in their processes. The first recommendation is to make an energy saving study mandatory for these companies.
Option: temporarily burn more coal
The extra CO2 reduction of energy savings by companies is in principle good news for the climate, but also opens the way to further reducing dependence on Russian natural gas via other routes.
For example, the Netherlands will be burning extra natural gas in power stations this summer six months, because since January 1, only 35 percent of the capacity of the coal-fired power stations can be used – in order to achieve the climate goals.
That measure could be temporarily reversed in order to gain independence from Russian gas more quickly. On an annual basis, the Netherlands can then save another 2.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas, energy expert Martien Visser previously calculated.
This will result in an increase in CO2 emissions of approximately 3.2 million tons. That is a substantial amount of CO2, but smaller than the potential reduction in compliance with the Savings Act.
Yet we don’t even have to cross them out against each other, Visser thinks. Due to the high energy prices, the Netherlands already uses less energy anyway, and together with the rapid growth of sustainable energy, we seem to be achieving the national climate goals this year anyway.
Dependence on Russian oil and gas, on the other hand, has declined little in practice – no matter how many ideas are put forward.