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New Energy World
New Energy World embraces the whole energy industry as it connects and converges to address the decarbonisation challenge. It covers progress being made across the industry, from the dynamics under way to reduce emissions in oil and gas, through improvements to the efficiency of energy conversion and use, to cutting-edge initiatives in renewable and low carbon technologies.
Tackling heat is priority to tackle net zero
5/4/2023
6 min read
Feature
Christophe Williams, CEO and co-founder of solar design and engineering company Naked Energy, discusses the UK’s neglect of solar thermal compared to European neighbours.
My grandfather was a pioneer of renewable technology in the 1970s. An engineer in the ‘Alternative Energy Division’ for John Laing, he developed flywheel storage technology, bi-directional underwater turbines, and early iterations of solar, wave and wind power.
Decades ahead of his time, as a child he told me that if we put all the world’s fossil fuels into an annual calendar, we’d only have a few minutes left. Some 50 years later, we are still fighting to change energy for good.
One of the biggest net zero challenges is decarbonising heating and cooling of residential and commercial buildings, and industrial processes. Accounting for roughly half of the world’s energy demand, only 10% of heating and cooling is currently met by renewables – the other 90% by burning fossil fuels.