Energy efficiency: “We virtually have all the potential installed”
An interview was conducted with Teresa Ponce de Leão, President of the National Laboratory for Energy and Geology (Laboratório Nacional de Energia e Geologia - LNEG).
Jornal Encontro (JE) – In your opinion, do you think there is great concern with energy efficiency in Portugal?
Teresa Ponce de Leão (TPL) – Regarding energy efficiency, much is being done in terms of public policy, because there is a requirement of the European Commission to turn those policies into national law and have a Directorate-general of Geology and Energy and a National Energy Agency to implement those public policies. On the other hand, a lot is being done with respect to research activities. There are many funds at present, from the European Commission, for energy efficiency and there is a strong initiative of national research entities and Portuguese companies, which are joining those policies with interest. But, despite the laws and the technology, energy efficiency also needs people and it is very difficult to induce behaviour. At the moment, there are also many projects that aim at raising awareness, softly leading them, without judgement, towards good practices. There are projects to ensure energy efficiency and accelerate this process.
JE – What advice would you give to the general public regarding those measures that depend on each of us, with regard to energy saving and energy efficiency?
TPL – For students, there are many advices that are common sense, for example, we do not need to be in a room and be cold - it makes no sense - and this is a mistake that is made very often. If you are obliged to travel to different places, and if you have certain responsibilities, for instance, if you attend European Commission meetings, you must, most of the times, wear a jacket to be in a given room because it is cold; but that does not make sense – they are spending enormous energy with air coolers. The same thing goes for the use of air conditioner to warm up a room, when a simple extra jacket makes you equally comfortable: it all comes down to comfort. In addition, it is necessary to be careful with turning on the lights and the equipment we acquire: if we have to change equipment, it is not hard to make an extra effort to buy a more efficient one. In our day to day life, the best advice I would give would be, in all we do, to think of how we can do better, for example, we should not leave the room and leave the lights on. Speaking of water, it is also important to reduce consumption, because we are also talking about energy, since the water needs energy to be transported to our homes. So we do not need to have the water running more than what is strictly necessary. We can leave the computer turned off. When we leave the classroom, the last student to leave can turn off the light. We can leave the windows open so that a room is cool in the morning, if the place so allows, and that is another advice to follow. I think we should consider about this issue in our day to day life: Do not leave televisions on for the night, do not let the videogame console on, that is, all that kind of small gestures.
JE – Will our country be more advanced than other EU countries in what regards energy policies? To which countries we can compare ourselves to?
TPL – Well, we are the 2nd country with the largest installed renewable power in Europe. Denmark is the country that lies ahead, given the existing energy needs of the country. However, given the production that we have - because we have very good wind, because we have very good rivers, have waterfalls that allow us to have enough water to produce electricity - we have days when we could supply all our needs at the expense of renewable energy and that in fact makes us a primary country, in these terms, at European level. Still, what is our problem? Since when are we an important country in terms of renewable energy? I would say, for several years now because, since 1990, we have made sure to study the wind power potential of the country, which led to a competition that enabled to install all of these wind turbines and that allowed us to identify all the places where we could install plants - and the plan is almost complete.
Therefore, this transformed Portugal in a very advanced country because it worked over the years in a sustainable way, and now can enjoy its current status. Hence, we virtually have all the potential installed. Nevertheless, we do not have links to Europe and we sometimes have renewable energy excesses, whether it is water, wind or that we cannot export to countries where often those needs are answered by fossil fuels, and our country has at the present time, along with Spain, managed to introduce a goal to the European Commission which requires more networks able to export this surplus energy. When there are surpluses, these are wasted, because we cannot send them to other countries. So we have to create links; and when I am talking about links, I am talking about connections by cables or overhead lines or pipelines if necessary, to bring Europe together, united, connected in terms of network.
“There are many more sources to explore”
JE – What often happens today is that this surplus energy from wind generators and hydroelectric centrals end up being wasted, due to storage difficulties. Can you comment?
TPL – At this time, the available storage consists of reservoir dams, where we can store energy in the form of potential energy of water, but much is being done, both at the domestic level - more in the distribution network - but also in terms of public transportation studies are being developed on the creation of new forms of storage, through electric storage. However, there is another possibility, for example, in areas of high solar concentration, that is, for now, an easier and cheaper storage medium, which is to store energy in the form of thermal energy.
JE – Now, regarding Portuguese economy, how does the attempt to obtain greater energy efficiency in our country promotes Portuguese economy, that is to say, on which branches of the economy does energy efficiency has greater impact?
TPL – With regards to the so-called green economy, for now, we have a tax system that tends to award the most efficient systems against the most polluting ones, so this will allow investors and industrialists to invest and promote. In addition, investment has been made in products that allow this energy efficiency, for example, products that enable combining the power supplied to the dealer with the consumer’s needs and automatically identifying what type of devices should get priority, the new products on the market that stimulate the economy, in other words, whenever there are new products, new needs are created on consumers and a more effervescent economy arises.
JE – Considering the National Action Plan for Energy Efficiency (Plano Nacional de Ação para a Eficiência Energética- PNAEE), generally speaking, what is it?
TPL – The PNAEE, such as the National Plan for Renewable Energy (Plano Nacional para as Energias Renováveis), which together form the National Plan for Energy, consists of a set of measures that have been identified as doable with obvious impacts, quantifiable evidence, therefore, with goals that are linked to different measures and, in conjunction with the regions and municipalities have been identified, and are now to be met and monitored. Thus, the plan, in addition to measures and targets, includes monitoring the implementation of the measures and whether or not the initially foreseen project is being fulfilled.
JE – Finally, addressing existing energy resources in Portugal, which are the resources more susceptible to exploitation? For instance, in the case of the Azores, we know that there is geothermal energy. Is it possible to maximize the exploitation of this energy?
TPL – Yes, it is possible since the Azores are capturing new investments, which are capital-intensive investments. It has to be properly studied, because there must be a guarantee that they will be selling in the future thus making the project economically and technically viable. But there are other very interesting ways. For instance, Madeira, despite not being a volcanic island, has that origin, and at the moment we are developing a project with electricity of Madeira, to identify the deep geothermal potential to build a geothermal plant that will improve the independence of Madeira in terms of the outside energy. But there are many more sources to explore, such as biomass, which allows you to turn waste into energy, heat, biofuels, which are also a good contribution to the national energy “mix” because a region cannot have all its needs fulfilled by wind power but if complemented by biomass, those needs could be met. And there is another very important energy source known as low enthalpy geothermal energy, which is widely used in the Nordic countries, but not traditionally used in Portugal, allowing the energetic production of heat and cold as needed. So there is geothermal energy, bioenergy, wind, solar, photovoltaic, hydric, wave power and offshore wind power (wind energy produced by wind turbines installed at sea).
Work by: Ana Carolina Silva; Inês Andreia Cruz; João Pedro Pinto e Maria Inês Faria
11th Grade
Escola Secundária Francisco de Holanda (High School), Guimarães
This work was carried out under the Flash Seminar held on the 5th and the 12th of May 2015 at Escola Secundária Francisco de Holanda (High School), in Guimarães. Students developed media content based on interviews with experts in various fields related to climate change and research on the subject.
Teresa Ponce de Leão (TPL) – Regarding energy efficiency, much is being done in terms of public policy, because there is a requirement of the European Commission to turn those policies into national law and have a Directorate-general of Geology and Energy and a National Energy Agency to implement those public policies. On the other hand, a lot is being done with respect to research activities. There are many funds at present, from the European Commission, for energy efficiency and there is a strong initiative of national research entities and Portuguese companies, which are joining those policies with interest. But, despite the laws and the technology, energy efficiency also needs people and it is very difficult to induce behaviour. At the moment, there are also many projects that aim at raising awareness, softly leading them, without judgement, towards good practices. There are projects to ensure energy efficiency and accelerate this process.
JE – What advice would you give to the general public regarding those measures that depend on each of us, with regard to energy saving and energy efficiency?
TPL – For students, there are many advices that are common sense, for example, we do not need to be in a room and be cold - it makes no sense - and this is a mistake that is made very often. If you are obliged to travel to different places, and if you have certain responsibilities, for instance, if you attend European Commission meetings, you must, most of the times, wear a jacket to be in a given room because it is cold; but that does not make sense – they are spending enormous energy with air coolers. The same thing goes for the use of air conditioner to warm up a room, when a simple extra jacket makes you equally comfortable: it all comes down to comfort. In addition, it is necessary to be careful with turning on the lights and the equipment we acquire: if we have to change equipment, it is not hard to make an extra effort to buy a more efficient one. In our day to day life, the best advice I would give would be, in all we do, to think of how we can do better, for example, we should not leave the room and leave the lights on. Speaking of water, it is also important to reduce consumption, because we are also talking about energy, since the water needs energy to be transported to our homes. So we do not need to have the water running more than what is strictly necessary. We can leave the computer turned off. When we leave the classroom, the last student to leave can turn off the light. We can leave the windows open so that a room is cool in the morning, if the place so allows, and that is another advice to follow. I think we should consider about this issue in our day to day life: Do not leave televisions on for the night, do not let the videogame console on, that is, all that kind of small gestures.
JE – Will our country be more advanced than other EU countries in what regards energy policies? To which countries we can compare ourselves to?
TPL – Well, we are the 2nd country with the largest installed renewable power in Europe. Denmark is the country that lies ahead, given the existing energy needs of the country. However, given the production that we have - because we have very good wind, because we have very good rivers, have waterfalls that allow us to have enough water to produce electricity - we have days when we could supply all our needs at the expense of renewable energy and that in fact makes us a primary country, in these terms, at European level. Still, what is our problem? Since when are we an important country in terms of renewable energy? I would say, for several years now because, since 1990, we have made sure to study the wind power potential of the country, which led to a competition that enabled to install all of these wind turbines and that allowed us to identify all the places where we could install plants - and the plan is almost complete.
Therefore, this transformed Portugal in a very advanced country because it worked over the years in a sustainable way, and now can enjoy its current status. Hence, we virtually have all the potential installed. Nevertheless, we do not have links to Europe and we sometimes have renewable energy excesses, whether it is water, wind or that we cannot export to countries where often those needs are answered by fossil fuels, and our country has at the present time, along with Spain, managed to introduce a goal to the European Commission which requires more networks able to export this surplus energy. When there are surpluses, these are wasted, because we cannot send them to other countries. So we have to create links; and when I am talking about links, I am talking about connections by cables or overhead lines or pipelines if necessary, to bring Europe together, united, connected in terms of network.
“There are many more sources to explore”
JE – What often happens today is that this surplus energy from wind generators and hydroelectric centrals end up being wasted, due to storage difficulties. Can you comment?
TPL – At this time, the available storage consists of reservoir dams, where we can store energy in the form of potential energy of water, but much is being done, both at the domestic level - more in the distribution network - but also in terms of public transportation studies are being developed on the creation of new forms of storage, through electric storage. However, there is another possibility, for example, in areas of high solar concentration, that is, for now, an easier and cheaper storage medium, which is to store energy in the form of thermal energy.
JE – Now, regarding Portuguese economy, how does the attempt to obtain greater energy efficiency in our country promotes Portuguese economy, that is to say, on which branches of the economy does energy efficiency has greater impact?
TPL – With regards to the so-called green economy, for now, we have a tax system that tends to award the most efficient systems against the most polluting ones, so this will allow investors and industrialists to invest and promote. In addition, investment has been made in products that allow this energy efficiency, for example, products that enable combining the power supplied to the dealer with the consumer’s needs and automatically identifying what type of devices should get priority, the new products on the market that stimulate the economy, in other words, whenever there are new products, new needs are created on consumers and a more effervescent economy arises.
JE – Considering the National Action Plan for Energy Efficiency (Plano Nacional de Ação para a Eficiência Energética- PNAEE), generally speaking, what is it?
TPL – The PNAEE, such as the National Plan for Renewable Energy (Plano Nacional para as Energias Renováveis), which together form the National Plan for Energy, consists of a set of measures that have been identified as doable with obvious impacts, quantifiable evidence, therefore, with goals that are linked to different measures and, in conjunction with the regions and municipalities have been identified, and are now to be met and monitored. Thus, the plan, in addition to measures and targets, includes monitoring the implementation of the measures and whether or not the initially foreseen project is being fulfilled.
JE – Finally, addressing existing energy resources in Portugal, which are the resources more susceptible to exploitation? For instance, in the case of the Azores, we know that there is geothermal energy. Is it possible to maximize the exploitation of this energy?
TPL – Yes, it is possible since the Azores are capturing new investments, which are capital-intensive investments. It has to be properly studied, because there must be a guarantee that they will be selling in the future thus making the project economically and technically viable. But there are other very interesting ways. For instance, Madeira, despite not being a volcanic island, has that origin, and at the moment we are developing a project with electricity of Madeira, to identify the deep geothermal potential to build a geothermal plant that will improve the independence of Madeira in terms of the outside energy. But there are many more sources to explore, such as biomass, which allows you to turn waste into energy, heat, biofuels, which are also a good contribution to the national energy “mix” because a region cannot have all its needs fulfilled by wind power but if complemented by biomass, those needs could be met. And there is another very important energy source known as low enthalpy geothermal energy, which is widely used in the Nordic countries, but not traditionally used in Portugal, allowing the energetic production of heat and cold as needed. So there is geothermal energy, bioenergy, wind, solar, photovoltaic, hydric, wave power and offshore wind power (wind energy produced by wind turbines installed at sea).
Work by: Ana Carolina Silva; Inês Andreia Cruz; João Pedro Pinto e Maria Inês Faria
11th Grade
Escola Secundária Francisco de Holanda (High School), Guimarães
This work was carried out under the Flash Seminar held on the 5th and the 12th of May 2015 at Escola Secundária Francisco de Holanda (High School), in Guimarães. Students developed media content based on interviews with experts in various fields related to climate change and research on the subject.