3FOOD

Third Industrial Revolution Consulting Group
The impact on society of near zero marginal cost solar and wind energy is all the more
pronounced when we consider the enormous potential of these energy sources. If we could
grab hold of one-tenth of one percent of the sun’s energy that reaches Earth, it would give us
six times the energy we now use across the global economy. Like solar radiation, wind is
ubiquitous and blows everywhere in the world—although its strength and frequency varies. A
Stanford University study on global wind capacity concluded that if 20 percent of the world’s
available wind was harvested, it would generate seven times more electricity than we currently
use to run the entire global economy. 18
The Energy Internet is comprised of five foundational pillars, all of which have to be phased-in
simultaneously in Luxembourg for the system to operate efficiently. First, buildings and other
infrastructure will need to be refurbished and retrofitted to make them more energy efficient
so that a high share of electricity, heat, and cold generated by renewable energy technologies
can be installed. The renewable energy generated can be used in the building or delivered back
to the electricity or heating grid. Reducing the energy needs of buildings allows traditional oil
and gas based heating systems to be replaced by newer technologies like heat pumps. This will
allow the share of renewables for space heating and cooling to increase massively. New
buildings will need to meet the strictest standards for energy efficiency, by designing them as
net positive energy buildings. The need for newly constructed residential buildings in
Luxembourg, resulting from its projected substantial population growth, provides a great
opportunity to transition into positive power building stock.
Second, ambitious targets must be set to replace fossil fuels and imported nuclear power with
renewable energy sources. This includes a marked increase of energy efficiency in electricity
and heat generation, e.g. by using combined heat and power technologies (conventional plants
run by biogas or methane, and fuel cells run by hydrogen). To achieve this goal, Luxembourg
has introduced a feed-in tariff to encourage early adopters to transform buildings and property
sites into micro-power generation facilities. The feed-in tariffs guarantee a premium price
above market value for renewable energies generated locally and sent back to the electricity
grid. Past experience in several other EU countries suggests that the introduction of feed in
tariffs can dramatically reduce the fixed and marginal cost of harvesting renewable energy and
be phased out over time as the new green energies approach parity with conventional fossil
fuels and nuclear power. Ultimately a legal and regulatory framework for the energy system will
need to emerge where subsidies and hidden costs for fossil fuels and nuclear power that are
currently embedded in the system are made explicit, thus creating a level playing field.
18 Cristina L. Archer and Mark Z. Jacobson, “Evaluation of Global Wind Power,” Journal of Geophysical Research,
Vol. 110.
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