Peter Richner, energy expert and Empa’s deputy director. Image: Empa
Peter Richner, energy expert and Empa's deputy director. Image: Empa Interview with Peter Richner, energy expert and Empa's deputy director, on our energy future - and the pitfalls of "forecasting". Energy scarcity has been one of the dominant topics in recent months - and is likely to continue to keep us busy, as we can see for instance by the continuation of a number of energy saving measures beyond the heating period. How did Empa manage to get through the winter? Thanks to a combination of warm weather and selective energy saving measures, we were able to reduce our energy consumption by a total of 14% between October 2022 and March 2023 compared to the same period a year earlier. And most importantly for us, we achieved this without any operational restrictions. How exactly did you achieve this, what measures did you take? We reduced room temperatures and lighting, dispensed with domestic hot water and consistently eliminated stand-by losses. And will you continue these measures? Or even take further steps toward a sustainable energy supply? We will certainly continue with the majority of the measures. Moreover, we are continuing to invest in an optimized control of room temperatures, and we will be commissioning a new type of seasonal heat storage system on our campus in Dübendorf this year, which will enable us to make further significant savings in heating energy. The energy transition to a sustainable energy supply is currently on everyone's lips - partly because of the upcoming vote on the Climate and Innovation Act. Everybody involved seems to be passing around different figures that seem to support one point of view or another. Why is there such a plethora of figures - are some simply unable to calculate?
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