Energy Blue Print
Archive 2010

Moving from principles to action for energy supply that mitigates against climate change requires a long-term perspective. Energy infrastructure takes time to build up; new energy technologies take time to develop. Policy shifts often also need many years to take effect. In most world regions the transformation from fossil to renewable energies will require additional investment and higher supply costs over about twenty years

archives2010 archiveregionalafricaheat and cooling supply

heat and cooling supply

Today, renewables provide 75% of Africa’s energy demand for heat supply, the main contribution coming from the use of traditional and often unsustainable biomass.The availability of less efficient but cheap appliances is a severe structural barrier to efficiency gains. Large scale utilisation of geothermal and solar thermal energy for heat supply is restricted to the industrial sector. Dedicated support instruments are required to ensure a continuously dynamic development of renewables in the heat market.
In the Energy [R]evolution scenario renewables provide 77% of Africa’s total heating and cooling demand in 2050.

  • Energy efficiency measures can restrict the future energy demand for heat and cooling supply to a 50% increase, in spite of improving living standards.
  • In the industry sector solar collectors, biomass/biogas as well as geothermal energy are increasingly substituted for conventional fossil-fired heating systems.
  • A shift from coal and oil to natural gas in the remaining conventional applications leads to a further reduction of CO2 emissions.

The advanced Energy [R]evolution case introduces renewable heating and cooling systems around five years ahead of the basic scenario. Compared to the Reference scenario, 898 PJ/a or 6% are saved by 2050. North African countries can even use solar heat directly for industrial process heat.Together with the large potential for economic use of geothermal energy in the immediate future, the renewables share can rise to 78% under the advanced version by 2030 and 90% by 2050.

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