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The Spanish Association for Standardization, UNE, has published a new report to present the key standardization areas of energy efficiency and savings that contribute to the climate and energy goals of modern society and the business world.
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These key areas are: energy efficiency in energy industries and services, as well as in building, sustainable urban mobility, ecodesign and energy labelling; renewable energies (thermal and electrical use);
public procurement; and circular economy
Madrid, 13 May 2024 - The Spanish Association for Standardization, UNE, has published its report “Supporting Standardization in Energy Efficiency and Savings", which offers a vision of the key standardisation areas of energy efficiency and savings that contribute to meeting the climate and energy goals of modern society and the business world. The report's publication comes in the context of the UNE 2025 Strategy, whose primary goal is to offer solutions for the challenges facing society; one of these challenges is the energy transition.
Standardization offers tools to support the energy efficiency and savings goals set by domestic and European policy. The main areas of action in this area include the proper management of energy, the energy efficiency of products, the building and transport sector, and support for the deployment of renewables.
The report addresses the key areas of standardization in energy efficiency and savings: energy efficiency in energy industries and services, as well as in building, sustainable urban mobility, ecodesign and energy labelling; renewable energies (thermal and electrical use);
public procurement; and circular economy The new Standardization Report also includes a brief explanation of how standards support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and help in crafting corporate sustainability reports.
Energy Efficiency
In the field of energy efficiency in the industry and energy services, work has been ongoing in several channels to optimize energy used in organizations in the development of their activities, such as the standardization of energy performance contracts or the features of energy service providers.
Improving the energy efficiency of buildings involves several developments. These include standards aimed at building owners or organisations that occupy them, to find out their overall energy consumption or to carry out energy assessments (UNE-EN ISO 52000-1), or recent work covering digital models (BIM and digital twins for buildings and infrastructure). AFEC, FEGECA, ANDIMAT, ASEFAVE and ANFALUM lead the national coordination of these developments.
With regard to sustainable urban transport and mobility, several standardization committees are developing standards that support European and national policies on road vehicles, electric personal mobility vehicles (VMP), hydrogen technology and gaseous fuels and gas installations and devices. Standardization in these areas is led by ANFAC, AEDIVE, AEH2 and SEDIGAS.
With regard to the ecological design and energy labelling, key associations from multiple sectors monitor the standardization requests that the European Commission draws up and requests from the European standardization organizations CEN and CENELEC.
Renewable energies
Various public policies and regulations are being adopted at national and European level to promote the use of renewable energies in the fields of thermal and electrical energy.
The related technical standardization committees are led by UNE members incnluding AEE, AFEC, AOP, APPA, CNH2, CIEMAT, CONAIF, FER, UNEF and PROTERMOSOLAR.
Public procurement
UNE and the Spanish National Accreditation Body (ENAC) have prepared a "Guide to the use of technical standards and accreditation in public procurement", for use directly by those in charge of preparing specifications or assessing whether bidders have met them. As for the development of standardization projects, UNE published the UNE-EN 2023 Public procurement standard in 17687. Integrity and accountability. European requirements and guidance.
Circular economy
UNE is the secretariat for standardization work on horizontal aspects in this area. The ISO standards aimed at implementing and measuring circularity in the organization are particularly noteworthy, as they provide methodologies for assessing the key circularity characteristics of energy-related products.
