Increased international cooperation on standards for energy efficiency needed

Cooperation on International Standards to promote energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions was given a major boost by a workshop in Paris, France, on 16–17 March 2009, which brought together 290 experts from the public and private sector.

The workshop was jointly organised by the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

The workshop confirmed that key players in the energy sector consider International Standards essential instruments to support the implementation of energy-efficiency practices. The experts underlined their commitment to contribute to and collaborate in the development of these standards.

The workshop provided an opportunity to develop an overview of work that has to be done on energy efficiency and for technical experts and public sector decision-makers to exchange information and map out the path forward. In particular, the importance of energy-efficiency standardisation was emphasised and how it can support carbon emissions reduction by providing internationally agreed metrics.

Presentations and discussion panels provided insights on the requirements and challenges related to energy efficiency and related standardisation work in a variety of fields, including industrial systems.

The results and directions for future action from the workshop as related to industrial systems were reported as:

• There is a significant opportunity to improve energy efficiency within industrial systems (compressed air, pumping, steam, fans, etc), yet this is currently only weakly captured due to a lack of awareness and the limited number of individuals with suitable technical skills and training (especially in emerging economies and developing countries).
• Benchmarking of energy-intensive industrial sectors is impeded by limited data and lack of standardisation in reporting. A global effort is needed to increase the availability of reliable data on industrial energy use, with appropriate safeguards for proprietary data.
• Work on system assessment standards should be encouraged to ensure coordination of sectoral, national, regional and international initiatives.

Further information is available at www.iso.org.