Denmark and California collaborate on energy efficiency
Last week, the Danish Energy Agency signed an agreement with California Energy Commission in San Francisco to exchange experiences on energy efficiency with an initial focus on decarbonizing industrial processes.
On October 2, 2019 – on Energy Efficiency Day in the US – the Director General of the Danish Energy Agency (DEA), Kristoffer Böttzauw, and Chair of the California Energy Commission, David Hochschild, signed an agreement to cooperate and share experiences with energy efficiency. Both Denmark and California prioritize energy efficiency as an important part of the decarbonization solutions to reach their ambitious climate targets of 100 percent clean energy by 2045.
California and Denmark are leaders in their respective regions when it comes to making energy systems greener and more cost-effective. However, there are still significant potential for improvement in the utilization of all resource streams. The initial focus for the Danish-Californian collaboration is decarbonizing of industrial processes in dairy processing facilities.
The Danish approach to energy efficiency in California
Based on the Danish approach, we will assist the California Energy Commission with knowledge about the potentials for increased energy efficiency in the industrial dairy processes and how to best support the industry in becoming more efficient.
The partnership includes drawing from Danish best practices and approaches to industrial processes in regards to better use of resources. One way of doing it, is conducting deep audits of the energy used in dairy processing facilities in California in order to find ways to change the setup to save electricity, natural gas and water.
The Danish Energy Agency has experience working directly with the industries and jointly identify potential for efficiency measures. Therefore, Danish regulators, consultants and industries have years of experiences in moving the Danish industry towards more energy efficient processes.
Reducing energy consumption is good for the climate as it reduces emissions of greenhouse gasses. Moreover, energy efficiency efforts also make the industry more competitive as it reduces energy cost and increases resilience against rising energy prices.
California’s goal to double energy efficiency
Both California and Denmark have a long history of successfully decoupling energy consumption from the increase in GDP, meaning that the economic growth of both societies increased faster than the energy consumption.
California’s ambitions in the energy efficiency area is stated by legislative action, SB-350, that requires California to double energy efficiency by 2030 compared to 2015. As a result, Californian regulative institutions show great interest in enhancing political frameworks and economic incentives to support the ambitious energy efficiency target. Danish experiences and expertise can be part of California’s continued progression in the green transition.
The formal term for such government-to-government cooperation agreements is Memorandum of Understanding or MoU for short. The new MoU between California and Denmark is the third MoU between the two governments – the other agreements are on water technology and offshore wind, respectively.
energy on the agenda
The Consulate General of Denmark, Silicon Valley, has established an ’energy and environment team’ focusing on the work feeding into the signed MoUs, bridging expertise, curiosity and technology.The team ensures environmentally sustainable progress in both states, enabling Danish energy-related knowledge in the Californian market - searching for inspiration in the tech- and policy environment.
The bilateral collaboration is part of Danish and Californian climate commitments, while it supports the target of doubling Danish export of energy technology related by 2030.
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