Saving Final or Primary Energy ? Lessons from a Flow Approach of the French Energy Balance : Implications on the Value of Energy Standards for Buildings

In the prospect of limiting not only energy consumption but also entropy increase, it is important to understand the way the energy system operates. This work is an attempt to do so by presenting and analyzing an original flow diagram of the French energy balance. It first provides evaluations of the energy efficiency of the national energy system. And then uses them to discuss the conversion factors from final to primary energy that are used in the French heat regulation. It shows that these conversion factors, especially the electricity one, depart from reality. This leads to a misinterpretation of the 2012 energy standard for new buildings.