The whole system: how policy, commerce, technology and society make a difference. A technical perspective from Jeff Douglas A technical perspective from Jeff Douglas


The whole system: how policy, commerce, technology and society make a difference. The whole system: how policy, commerce, technology and society make a difference


Energy systems are complex, with products from places like oil-rich Alaska, or the windy North Sea, ultimately heating our homes, washing dishes or accelerating cars. In reality three energy systems exi


. First we have liquid fuels, which power planes, ships and road vehicles.


A technical perspective from Jeff Douglas Energy systems are complex, with products from places like oil-rich Alaska, or the windy North Sea, ultimately heating our homes, washing dishes or accelerating cars. In reality three energy systems exist. First we have liquid fuels, which power planes, ships and road vehicles.


Second, electricity, which is relatively small and has a low demand range compared to heat, but is mission critical for the whol gas, wAverage UK Energy Flows 2015hich has huge storage capacity and has become dominant in the UK for heating and electricity generation. The diagram below shows today’s average UK energy flows:


Energy systems are complex, with products from places ike oil-rich Alaska, or the windy North Sea, ultimately heating our homes, washing dishes or accelerating cars. In reality three energy systems exist. First we have liquid fuels, which power planes, ships and road vehicles.


Second, electricity, which is relatively small and has a low demand range compared to heat, but is mission critical for the whole system. And third, natural gas, which has huge storage capacity and has become dominant in the UK for heating and electricity generation. The diagram below shows today’s average UK energy flows:


Second, electricity, which is relatively small and has a low demand range compared to heat, but is mission critical for the whole system. And third, natural gas, which has huge storage capacity and has become dominant in the UK for heating and electricity generation. The diagram opposite shows today’s average UK energy flows. However, we now realise that we can’t carry on using fossil fuels for heat and power, and the challenge is to remove emissions from the system over a relatively short period of time. Had we started decades ago, this might have been achieved through the evolution of markets, but without that available time we have to decide which parts of the system are most effective to decarbonise. To consider the technical challenges of doing this, as part of a whole energy systems approach, we should consider three separate timeframes.


First, there has to be a strategic perspective to provide direction and avoid pursuing solutions that lead to dead ends. Similarly we should avoid viable solutions that use energy resources that could be more cost effectively deployed in another sector. Here it’s important to agree the first steps, as well as the pathway to the final targets. For example, heat networks could use natural gas combined heat and power generation to help establish the customer base, but then need an identified route to the final low carbon solution. This might be based on marine heat pumps powered from a decarbonised electricity grid.


Second, is the investment timeframe for efficiently planning and installing the infrastructure assets and including the systems and ICT needed for control, management and charging arrangements. Here decisions need to be made on data protocols and standards. For example, is society better served by proprietary systems, or open standards that allow any customer to link with any service provider?


Finally we have the operational timeframe. Here pressures on the system will become more acute over time with the levels of diversity between customer actions reducing. More people will heat their homes or charge their cars simultaneously, using systems that don’t have the inherent energy storage capacity of fossil fuels.


When talking about adopting a ‘systems’ planning approach, the inevitable question about the boundaries of the system arises. Take home heating, where the thermal interaction with the building fabric is an important consideration.


Should the ‘systems’ perspective incorporate a view on the suitability of the nation’s housing stock for life in the 2050’s and beyond? Should new power stations be designed to capture wasted energy for home heating?


In reality, future systems will become


Recoverable Heat Solar Hydro Wind Electricity Nuclear Dry Waste Wet Waste Gas Coal Biomass UK Biomass Biomass Imports Biofuel Imports Liquid Fuel


Recoverable Heat Solar Hydro Wind Electricity Nuclear Dry Waste Wet Waste Gas Coal Biomass UK Biomass Biomass Imports Biofuel Imports Liquid Fuel


Average UK Energy Flows (2015) - Energy Technologies Institute, ESME


Average UK Energy Flows (2015) - Energy Technologies Institute, ESME Energy Technologies Institute, ESME


more complex with not just one system, but a series of systems within systems with many crossovers and currently unknown adaptations. Whilst it’s not possible to accurately forecast the future, we should use our best knowledge to provide direction. For example, the Energy Technology Institute’s (ETI) design and planning capability, ESME (Energy System Modelling Environment), provides valuable insight on cost effective approaches to decarbonising the energy system. At the same time, the Energy Systems Catapult is working with the ETI on the EnergyPath Networks local area strategy planning process. The partners are also looking at new services and business models to support the decarbonisation of buildings as part of the ETI’s Smart Systems and Heat programme. However, this isn’t just about strategic forethought. Many technology and market assumptions will need to be tested at scale with real people in the real world. This will be instrumental to the cost effective policy frameworks if the future that provide the best chance of a successful energy system transition.


Societal impacts from Dr Nick Eyre


Market, commercial, environmental and technical changes cannot be delivered without thinking about the societal context. To a large extent, technical pressures result from social changes, and the ways in which these are addressed need to be consistent with those changes.


Energy technologies and system changes have always needed to be broadly acceptable to the decision makers in society. But while previous generations were satisfied with support from elected governments, today’s society has less deference to authority. Nuclear power stations, wind farms and transmission lines have all faced effective opposition campaigns. Technical expertise is not enough; securing change needs to be broadly ‘socially acceptable’ if it is to happen. But some of the newer challenges to the energy system require more than ‘social acceptability’, they also demand active social engagement. For the significant deployment of micro-generation, electrification of transport


and heat, distributed storage, or demand side response, at least some of today’s passive consumers will have to take a more active role. However, many examples point to why this could be difficult; consider how people have not insulated their homes when it would be financially sensible. Yet it is unhelpful and over-simplistic to see the problem as an apathetic public that fails to follow the advice of ‘experts’. In the last few years exciting counter-examples illustrate a large social appetite for change.


The best known is the adoption of residential solar photovoltaics. This is partly the result of rapid cost reduction and a feed-in tariff, but a significant part of the population also understands the urgency of transforming our energy system.


Adoption has exceeded the highest projection of the National Grid in every recent year, and now DNOs in the south of England are struggling to strengthen networks to keep pace. The same could happen with electric vehicle charging, which could lead to more problems but might also deliver distributed storage.


So the new social context for energy system change is a complex mix of suspicion of authority, apathy and eagerness for change. The technical solutions engineers will propose will be diverse, and if adopted, will require better public engagement.


The key responsibility for this lies with the UK government but engineers also have moral responsibilities to communicate beyond experts, and to the public. And as the system changes, opportunities for more local engagement will grow.


Across Britain, myriad community energy schemes are under development, with engineers doing what engineers do best; making things work. But in the process we may also have to rediscover an older engineering tradition; explaining why things work, how things can change for the better and why it matters.


Jeff Douglas is Strategy Manager of Energy Systems Catapult at the Energy Technologies Institute. Dr Nick Eyre is Programme Leader of the Lower Carbon Futures group in the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford and also a Member of the IET Energy Policy Panel.


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