Results: Searching for 'Energy Scenarios'

• To investigate the costs that domestic electricity suppliers in Great Britain might face in 2030.
• To make projections on the assumption that, unless formally announced, no changes are made to the electricity market arrangements in place today
• To focus in particular on the hourly variation and seasonal shape of supplier costs

• To investigate the costs that domestic electricity suppliers in Great Britain might face in 2030.
• To make projections on the assumption that, unless formally announced, no changes are made to the electricity market arrangements in place today
• To focus in particular on the hourly variation and seasonal shape of supplier costs

• This study investigates the costs that domestic electricity suppliers in Great Britain might face in 2030
• Projections are made based on the assumption that, unless formally announced, no changes are made to today’s electricity market arrangements
• Particular focus is given to the hourly variation and seasonal shape of costs faced by suppliers
• Hourly retail cost stacks in 2030 are modelled for the average domestic electricity consumer in the East Midlands

1. National Grid Two Degrees (NG 2 Degrees): A relatively high demand scenario, with relatively high renewables, nuclear and imports, but reduced levels of CCGT
2. ETI Long-Term Role of Gas (ETI LT ROG): The highest-demand scenario modelled, with high levels of renewables, CCGT and storage, but reduced nuclear capacity
3. ETI Consumers, Vehicles and Energy Integration (ETI EVEI): With demand the lowest of the three, this scenario has the highest levels of nuclear, but the lowest levels of renewables and storage

1. Trends in supplier costs that might occur between 2017 and 2030 if market arrangements remain unchanged
2. Differences between scenarios that can be seen, reflecting different technology and market assumptions
3. Issues that could result if arrangements remain unchanged over horizon to 2030

• A word document providing interpretation of the findings in this slide deck
• A high level viewpoint for senior stakeholders summarising the work, results and insights
• An Excel workbook containing the key inputs and a
  full set of hourly outputs by scenario

• To investigate the costs that domestic electricity suppliers in Great Britain might face in 2030.
• To make projections on the assumption that, unless formally announced, no changes are made to the electricity market arrangements in place today
• To focus in particular on the hourly variation and seasonal shape of supplier costs

This project uses the global TIMES Integrated Assessment Model in UCL (‘TIAM-UCL’) to provide robust quantitative insights into the future of natural gas in the energy system and in particular whether or not gas has the potential to act as a ‘bridge’ to a low-carbon future on both a global and regional basis out to 2050.

We first explore the dynamics of a scenario that disregards any need to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Such a scenario results in a large uptake in the production and consumption of all fossil fuels, with coal in particular dominating the electricity system. It is unconventional sources of gas production that account for much of the rise in natural gas production; with shale gas exceeding 1 Tcm after 2040. Gas consumption grows in all sectors apart from the electricity sector, and eventually becomes cost effective both as a marine fuel (as liquefied natural gas) and in mediumgoods vehicles (as compressed natural gas).

We next examine how different gas market structures affect natural gas production, consumption, and trade patterns. For the two different scenarios constructed, one continued current regionalised gas markets, which are characterised by very different prices in different regions with these prices often based on oil indexation, while the other allowed a global gas price to form based on gas supply-demand fundamentals. We find only a small change in overall global gas production levels between these but a major difference in levels of gas trade and so conclude that if gas exporters choose to defend oil indexation in the short-term, they may end up destroying their export markets in longer term. A move towards pricing gas internationally, based on supply-demand dynamics, is thus shown to be crucial if they are to maintain their current levels of exports.

This paper explores the sensitivity of energy system decarbonisation pathways to the role of afforestation and reduced energy demands as a means to lessen reliance on carbon dioxide removal. 

Large uncertainties surround the viability of carbon dioxide removal

The stringency of climate targets set out in the Paris Agreement has placed strong emphasis on the role of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) over this century. However, there are large uncertainties around the technical and economic viability and the sustainability of large-scale CDR options. These uncertainties have prompted further consideration of the role of bioenergy in decarbonisation pathways and the potential land-use trade-offs between energy crops and afforestation. The interest in afforestation is motivated by its potential as an alternative to large-scale bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), with its arguably lower risk supply chains, and multiple co-benefits. Furthermore, doubt over the viability of large-scale CDR has prompted a renewed examination of the extent to which their need can be offset by lowering energy demands.

Testing the impacts of reduced demands and afforestation

A global optimisation model (TIAM-UCL) was used to examine decarbonisation pathways for the global energy system. Based on core assumptions, where energy demands follow business as usual trends and degraded land is used for energy crops, the model was unable to find a solution for a 1.5°C target. Over the period 2020-2100, the carbon budget of GtCO₂ is exceeded by 332 GtCO₂.

Scenarios where also run to examine how the least-cost decarbonisation pathway changes if i) energy demands are significantly reduced, or ii) degraded land is used for large-scale afforestation instead of energy crops. Each option on its own reduced the CO₂ budget exceedance but both were required to allow the model to meet the 1.5°C target.

Impacts on the energy system

Under the 2°C target, afforestation reduced the reliance on BECCS by 60%. Under the 1.5°C target, the system still used all of the biomass available, as the target is so ambitious. When the energy demands were lower, the effect of afforestation on biomass use was dependent on the climate target. Under the 2°C target, less biomass was used across all economic sectors, whereas under the stringent 1.5°C target, all the available wood and crop biomass was exploited, but its use shifted away from the production of liquid fuels towards use in power generation.

Lowering energy service demands had a larger effect on the energy mix than large-scale afforestation. This is because demands are lowered differently across the sectors according to their economic drivers. However, afforestation had a bigger impact on the marginal cost of climate change mitigation, as it substantially decreases the scale and pace of change required by the energy system, especially in the 2°C case.

Given its key role, afforestation should be considered more in deep decarbonisation scenarios, as should lower demand scenarios.

Lowering energy demand and introducing large-scale afforestation both present significant challenges and opportunities. Further work should focus on factors affecting the carbon sequestration potential of afforestation, along with an interdisciplinary research agenda on the scope for large scale energy demand reduction. Research on the social, technical and economic factors that affect the potential for converting abandoned agricultural land to energy crops or new forest would be beneficial. An interdisciplinary research agenda is needed that brings together techno-economic modelling and qualitative scenario development with research on the social change that could lead to large reductions in energy demand

The review is structured around the central research question: To what extent are energy and ecosystem scenarios consistent and comparable? The research will be conducted using a Rapid Evidence Assessment (REA) approach. More details on the project and the approach can be found in the scoping note.

This is the final report for the DTI and DEFRA on the development of a new UK MARKAL & MARKAL-Macro (M-M) energy systems model. The focus of this final report is on the extensive range of UK 60% CO2 abatement scenarios and sensitivity analysis run for analytical insights to underpin the 2007 Energy White Paper. This analysis was commissioned by the DTI to underpin the development of the 2007 UK Energy White Paper, and this technical report is a companion publication to the policy focused discussion of the modelling work (DTI, 2007).

To what extent are energy and ecosystem scenarios consistent and comparable? A new working paper from the TPA Theme of UKERC suggests that energy and ecosystem service scenarios are broadly consistent, with climate change representing a unifying narrative.

This report is the first in the UKERC Energy 2050 project series. It focuses on a range of low carbon scenarios underpinned by energy systems analysis using the newly developed and updated UK MARKAL elastic demand (MED) model. Such modelling is designed to develop insights on a range of scenarios of future energy system evolution and the resultant technology pathways, sectoral trade-offs and economic implications. Long-term energy scenario-modelling analysis is characterised by deep uncertainty over a range of drivers including resources, technology development, behavioural change and policy mechanisms. Therefore, subsequent UKERC Energy 2050 reports focus on a broad scope of sensitivity analysis to investigate alternative scenarios of energy system evolution. In particularly, these alternative scenarios investigate different drivers of the UK’s energy supply and demand, and combine the twin goals of decarbonisation and energy system resilience. Future analysis includes the use of complementary macro-econometric and detailed sectoral energy models.

The 2006 Annual Energy Modelling Conference (AEMC) of the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) was held in Oxford UK from 5-7 December 2006. The conference theme was Quantifying Scenarios of a Low Carbon Society. The conference structure consisted of an open symposium with UK energy policy stakeholders followed by a technical modelling workshop. A particular emphasis was on developing country participation. A key output of the workshop was to define comparative modelling runs which will be a direct research output to the UK-Japan research project Developing Visions for a LowCarbon Society (LCS) through Sustainable Development.

Open Symposium

• Presentation and discussion of research regarding UK and international scenarios of low carbon societies (LCS) Closed expert workshop
• Technical discussion of state-of-the-art energy modelling
• Introduction to developing country energy modelling teams and capacities
• Definition of collaborative modelling run: to agree a set of scenarios each with common inputs for comparable runs of the various models

This paper is the second in a series which aims to provide insights into the use of scenarios for informing low carbon energy policy. Building on insights from a historical overview of strategic scenario planning in the first working paper of the series (Hughes, 2009), this paper reviews selected recent UK and international low carbon energy scenarios, analyses their strengths and weaknesses, and offers some suggestions for improving the strategic power of future UK low carbon energy scenarios.

This paper adopts the broad characterisation proposed in Hughes (2009), that scenario thinking is the use of the imagination to consider possible alternative future situations, as they may evolve from the present, with a view to improving immediate and near-term decision making. The three key objectives of scenario thinking identified in Hughes (2009), improving protective decision making, improving proactive decision making, and consensus building, are also highlighted.

The paper notes that from the approaches and methodologies outlined in Hughes (2009), two approaches in particular have been strongly drawn upon in the construction of low carbon energy scenarios. The first is the derivation of broadly consistent future scenarios from 'high level trends', sometimes represented within a '2x2 matrix'. The second is the concept of 'backcasting' from a normatively constructed future end point. This observation informs a three-fold typology for reviewing the low carbon energy scenarios in this paper:

• Trend driven studies: developed around high level trends
• Technical feasibility studies: demonstrate technical feasibility of end points, sometimes 'backcasting' from them
• Modelling studies: complex quantitative models are used to generate results, often operating within exogenous emission constraints

This report serves as a technical explanation of the MARKAL and MARKAL-Macro (M-M) model analysis, to be included in the 2007 Energy White Paper, of the long-term impacts and associated uncertainties of a 60% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050. It is a companion report to the policy focused DTI report The MARKAL energy model in the 2007 Energy White Paper (DTI, 2007). Further policy focused MARKAL-Macro analysis, exploring alternate sensitivities and more stringent emission reduction targets is in Lockwood et al (2007) and DEFRA (2007).

‘Smart grid’ is a catch-all term for the smart options that could transform the ways society produces, delivers and consumes energy, and potentially the way we conceive of these services. Delivering energy more intelligently will be fundamental to decarbonising the UK electricity system at least possible cost, while maintaining security and reliability of supply.

Smarter energy delivery is expected to allow the integration of more low carbon technologies and to be much more cost effective than traditional methods, as well as contributing to economic growth by opening up new business and innovation opportunities. Innovating new options for energy system management could lead to cost savings of up to £10bn, even if low carbon technologies do not emerge1 . This saving will be much higher if UK renewable energy targets are achieved.

Building on extensive expert feedback and input, this report describes four smart grid scenarios which consider how the UK’s electricity system might develop to 2050. The scenarios outline how political decisions, as well as those made in regulation, finance, technology, consumer and social behaviour, market design or response, might affect the decisions of other actors and limit or allow the availability of future options. The project aims to explore the degree of uncertainty around the current direction of the electricity system and the complex interactions of a whole host of factors that may lead to any one of a wide range of outcomes. Our addition to this discussion will help decision makers to understand the implications of possible actions and better plan for the future, whilst recognising that it may take any one of a number of forms.

Smart grids are expected to play a central role in any transition to a low-carbon energy future, and much research is currently underway on practically every area of smart grids. However, it is evident that even basic aspects such as theoretical and operational definitions, are yet to be agreed upon and be clearly defined. Some aspects (efficient management of supply, including intermittent supply, two-way communication between the producer and user of electricity, use of IT technology to respond to and manage demand, and ensuring safe and secure electricity distribution) are more commonly accepted than others (such as smart meters) in defining what comprises a smart grid.

It is clear that smart grid developments enjoy political and financial support both at UK and EU levels, and from the majority of related industries. The reasons for this vary and include the hope that smart grids will facilitate the achievement of carbon reduction targets, create new employment opportunities, and reduce costs relevant to energy generation (fewer power stations) and distribution (fewer losses and better stability). However, smart grid development depends on additional factors, beyond the energy industry. These relate to issues of public acceptability of relevant technologies and associated risks (e.g. data safety, privacy, cyber security), pricing, competition, and regulation; implying the involvement of a wide range of players such as the industry, regulators and consumers.

The above constitute a complex set of variables and actors, and interactions between them. In order to best explore ways of possible deployment of smart grids, the use of scenarios is most adequate, as they can incorporate several parameters and variables into a coherent storyline. Scenarios have been previously used in the context of smart grids, but have traditionally focused on factors such as economic growth or policy evolution. Important additional socio-technical aspects of smart grids emerge from the literature review in this report and therefore need to be incorporated in our scenarios. These can be grouped into four (interlinked) main categories: supply side aspects, demand side aspects, policy and regulation, and technical aspects. A brief overview of each is provided.

• High Priority
  •  Conversion technologyinnovation improvements, especially CAPEX and efficiencies,result in dramatic chain improvements, and are worth exploring further as these will be required to increase the competitiveness of all of the TEABPP chains.
• Medium-High Priority
  • Torrefaction+pelleting plants should focus on increasing product LHV, optimising with energy crop/SRF feedstocks, and reducing electricity use.
• Medium Priority
  • Chemical washingplants, if developed, should focus on reducing output nitrogen content and lowering chemicaluseand GHG emissions, plussafely dealing with waste water disposal.
  • Water washingplants should focus on optimisation with forestrythen perennial energy cropfeedstocks, and compliance with combustion and gasification plant feedstock limits and non-GHG emissions limits
  • Pyrolysis plants should focus on significantlyimproving bio-oil yields when usinghigher-ash energy crop/SRF feedstocks, and overall plant thermal integration.

• The agreedselection criteria used;
• A write-up of the down-selection workshop discussions and decisions held;
• The further data collected and improvements made to the D2 tool; and
• Justification for the selection of the final 10 case studies– based on an assessment rating the chains against the selectioncriteria, highlighting particular strengths or weaknesses, and where particular criteria exclude groups of chains or chains containing particular components.

• Heat
  • Underfed combustion
    • Natural drying+ screening
    • Water washing
• Power
  • BFB gasifier
    • Natural drying+ screening
    • Water wash + pelleting
  • CFB combustion
    • Natural drying+ screening
    • Pelleting
    • Chemical
    • wash + pelleting
  • EF gasifier + CCGT
    • Pelleting
    • Torrefaction+ pelleting
    • Pyrolysis

• a manually-fed boiler,
• an automatically-fed boiler with a fixed combustion bed, and
• an automatically-fed boiler with a moving combustion bed.

This report has been produced by the UK Energy Research Centres Technology and Policy Assessment (TPA) function. The TPA was set up to address key controversies in the energy field through comprehensive assessments of the current state of knowledge. It aims to provide authoritative reports that set high standards for rigour and transparency, while explaining results in a way that is useful to policymakers.

This report precedes a TPA study of some of the key issues which face the deployment of bio-energy resources in the period to 2050. The objective of this report was to review existing estimates of the UK resource base and identify the most important assumptions and uncertainties affecting estimates of the domestic resource potential. It was envisaged that this would inform the scope of the subsequent bio-energy TPA. A secondary objective was to assist DECC develop bio-energy route maps, promised under the UKs 2009 Low Carbon Transition Plan.

Phase 1 of the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) facilitated the development of a state-of-the-art MARKAL model of the UK energy system. MARKAL is a well established linear optimisation, energy system model, developed by the Energy Technology Systems Analysis Programme (ETSAP) of the International Energy Agency (IEA) in the 1970s, and was until very recently used by it for its annual Energy Technology Perspectives (ETP) reports. It is also used by many other research teams round the world, and has been regularly updated and improved over the years through the ETSAP Implementing Agreement.

Towards the end of UKERCs Phase 1, in 2007-8, UK MARKAL was used for a major modelling exercise of different projections of the UK energy system to 2050, the results of which were published in Skea at al 2011. In the ensuing years, UK MARKAL was again used for major 2050-focused modelling projects: for the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) in 2010 (CCC 2010), for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) in 2011 (HMG 2011), and again for UKERC to update the Energy 2050 scenarios in 2012. This UKERC Research Report presents the main results of each of these modelling exercises, with a view to drawing out any key messages from the set as a whole.

Comparisons between such model runs, even of the same model, need to be drawn with care. Various assumptions, including cost and other data inputs to the model, were changed between the model runs, to reflect policy and other developments, and to incorporate new information. Some of the technology representations in the model were also improved. These changes have two implications for comparisons between such model runs. The first is that detailed conclusions about the cost-preferability of particular technologies, unless they emerge as clear favourites across the whole set of runs, are unlikely to be robust. This is because the cost uncertainties of possible developments in these technologies and their competitors over four decades are very great. Where, as will be seen in these cases, the costs between the major low-carbon technologies are, or may be, of the same orderof magnitude, then there are no strong grounds on the basis of these runs of preferring one over the others on cost grounds.

The second conclusion is more positive. Where consistent patterns of development of the energy system emerge across the different runs, despite the different inputs and the fact that the runs were carried out by different modellers and modelling teams, then more confidence may be placed in these patterns as likely features of the future UK energy system under the constraints applied, theprincipal constraint being reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, or carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the case of the UK energy system, according to the provisions of the UK Climate Change Act of 2008. It is these consistent patterns that inform the main conclusions of this report, which are summarised here under a number of headings. The numbers on which these broad conclusions are based appear in the main report.

The UKERC Systems Theme has played an important role in the development of the UK’s capacity to think systematically about the future of the energy system. Key tools in this process have been the development of scenarios, and the development and use of the MARKAL energy system model. This project reflects on scenarios and on the use and communication of MARKAL, with a view to informing future UKERC work. Specifically, the project conducted retrospective analysis of pre-UKERC energy scenarios for the UK (published from 1977-2002), examined the scenarios produced by the UKERC systems theme, and studied the use and communication of the UK MARKAL model.

The diversity of scenario methods and approaches developed within UKERC is valuable, and should be fostered further. Too narrow a range of techniques and teams developing scenarios would risk constraining the ability of UKERC to open up thinking to a wide range of possibilities, perspectives and framings, which history suggests is important. UKERC scenarios have tended to be dominated by futures in which mitigation goals are met, and in which scenario differences are driven by policy or technology, though there are of course exceptions. As UKERC Phase 3 begins, there is a case for reflecting further on the range and type of uncertainties addressed within energy system scenarios, and the diversity of tools and techniques used to generate them.

A core tool of the UKERC systems theme has been the UK MARKAL model. The research undertaken for this project indicates that MARKAL has generally been used and communicated appropriately, in part because of good working relationships between government analysts and UKERC researchers. There are also areas in which there is room for improvement, and UKERC Phase 3 provides an opportunity to learn the lessons from previous experience.