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U.S., U.K. May Cut Energy Use 20% Refitting Buildings (Update1)
2010-10-18 12:46:09.674 GMT
(Adds comment from author in third paragraph.)
By Ben Sills
Oct. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Governments in the U.S., the U.K.
and Spain could reduce their energy consumption by as much as 20
percent by encouraging investors to refit buildings to make them
more efficient, said Peter Sweatman, chief executive officer of
the Madrid-based consulting firm Climate Strategy SL.
Officials could use investment opportunities worth as much
as $300 billion a year globally by creating a framework for
investing in "energy efficiency assets," Sweatman said in a
report to be published tomorrow co-authored by Katrina Managan
of the Instituto de Empresa business school.
"The level of ambition required to reach a lot of the
stated national targets of energy efficiency is high, and a
greater level of policy engagement is going to be required to
meet them," Sweatman said in a telephone interview today.
Improving the energy efficiency of buildings, transport and
factories is the quickest and cheapest way to reduce greenhouse-
gas emissions and may be worth $1.2 trillion a year in sales by
2020, according to a related report by HSBC Holdings Plc. The
European Union is aiming to improve energy efficiency by 20
percent over the next decade.
Sweatman recommended that governments offer guarantees to
financing vehicles which can aggregate energy-efficiency
projects with standardized documentation that can sell
securities backed by those assets to institutional investors.
The move would allow officials to deliver aid to a wider number
of projects without having to approve individual refits.
"We need more agile way in which governments can provide
support," Sweatman said
The report was reviewed by executives from Climate Change
Capital, Banco Santander SA and NextEra Energy Inc. as well as
academics at the University of California, Berkeley, and Duke
University.
For Related News and Information:
Renewable energy top page: GREEN <GO>
Power markets: VOLT <GO>
Top energy news: ETOP <GO>
--Editors: Randall Hackley, Reed Landberg
To contact the reporter on this story:
Ben Sills in Madrid at +34-91-700-9603 or bsills@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Reed Landberg at +44-20-7330-7862 or landberg@bloomberg.net
