Digitization as the key to climate protection? An assessment based on case studies in the energy sector
Digital applications in the energy sector, such as weather forecast and control of heating systems or virtual power plants of PV battery storages, are expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For a holistic assessment, the environmental impacts of digitization must be compared with the potential environmental benefits of the applications. For this, the IÖW and co2online have developed an evaluation method and applied it to selected case studies. The result: the environmental impacts of digitization for the applications are comparatively small and climate protection potentials could be identified with the help of the method. Further research is needed to determine the environmental effects that arise from the behavior of users and those that occur at the level of the overall system.
