Annual Report 2008 - IVA

tomas kåberger, swedish energy agency:
huge potential to cut energy costs
Tomas Kåberger has been involved in energy issues of an industrial and
financial nature for many years, as a scientist, but also within the bioenergy
industry. He has been Director General of the Swedish Energy Agency since 1
March 2008.
The swedish energy Agency supports a
number of large projects and programmes
to improve efficiency in energy consumption.
Among other things, the agency is
co-financing ivA’s energy crossroads, a
project to develop strategies for sweden’s
energy system in a new climatic situation.
Tomas kåberger believes that sweden
needs to produce more electricity and
heat from renewable energy and at the
same time work towards improving energy
efficiency. investing to save energy cuts
costs.
“in the swedish energy Agency’s programme
for energy efficiency in electricity
intensive industries, companies are investing
sek 1 billion to cut electricity consumption
by one terawatt-hour per year.
This is just one fifth of the investment to
produce the same amount of energy with
new nuclear or wind power. The potential
is huge, especially for the housing sector.
Tomas kåberger hopes that sweden
can take the initiative at the political level
as well. in 2009 sweden will take over
the eu Presidency and the same year, the
un’s climate conference will take place in
copenhagen.
“sweden has traditions and expertise
that set us apart from other countries, including
those within the eu. The bioenergy
field is one example; sweden has been
working for a long time with bi-products
from forests and agriculture, while elsewhere
in the eu, when they talk about
more bioenergy they are usually referring
»Sweden has traditions
and expertise that set
us apart from other
countries«
»IVA can be of benefit,
with its ability to
help create industrial
constellations through
its networks«
to specially-cultivated crops. it’s important
that sweden’s representatives manage to
explain the strategy of our forest industry.
Taxes on fossil fuels helped create a market
for bioenergy in sweden earlier than in
other countries. competition, rather than
subsidies, encouraged companies to find
bi-products instead of using energy crops,”
says Tomas kåberger.
“now we have the opportunity to develop
wind and solar energy as well. Perhaps
we can be even more successful in
developing our manufacturing industries
when the demand is growing globally.”
a possible future scenario that Tomas
kåberger sees is one in which sweden
21
expands, for example, its wind power production
significantly and then sells energy
to countries on the continent.
“This would lower the price of electricity
in sweden, provide climate benefits and
at the same time be a boost for excellent
swedish companies such as skf and ABB.
But we need a combination of researchmarket-industry
to bring about this development.
only when all of these interact
can positive things really start to happen.”
Tomas kåberger believes sweden is in a
strong position to take the lead in industrialisation
projects within the energy sector.
industrialisation opportunities are, according
to Tomas kåberger, a key issue for
successful development of the energy sector
– and there is a central role for ivA to
play here.
“sweden has excellent researchers and
technology suppliers within the energy
sector, but we have not been as successful
at exploiting this for industrialisation. This is
where i believe ivA can be of benefit, with
its ability to help create industrial constellations
through its networks.”
tomas kåberger also emphasises the
importance of ivA involving professionals
working in industry.
“if ivA is to be able to make concrete
contributions in the industrialisation of
new technology, professionals working in
industry need to be involved. in division
iii: Building and construction, where i’m
a member, we have worked hard to find
themes for our meetings that can attract
people working in industry to take the
time to participate. we have also managed
to raise the level of attendance at our
meetings.”