Many decisions that formed today's energy flows in homes, public and private sector have been made years ago in a situation very different from current. In periods when energy was much cheaper than today decisions were made to buy machines that have been using lots of energy, good thermal insulation wasn't a priority because energy for cooling and heating was cheap and production plants were created in order to minimize total production costs and not the energy consumption. Many of these solutions are still in function although the conditions have dramatically changed.
Continuous increase of energy consumption as a result of economic and technological development, together with ascending trend of energy prices, results in increasing importance of energy. As the impact of energy on our lives and business activities increases it becomes necessary to understand the energy as the investment which has to be managed systematically with increasing energy efficiency - effective and efficient use of this limited resource.
