Michael Grubb, Professor of Energy and Climate Change, UCL ISR
Categories: Conference Presentations, Energy and environment, Energy economics, Energy policy
Tags: 2019 conference, Europe, net zero
Economics-and-policy-Politics-and-Europe-michael-grubb-UCL-.pdf 1.55 MBPaolo Agnolucci, University College London (UCL) No economic sector incorporates more heterogeneity in the typology of energy consumers than the industrial sector, yet analysis of energy and fuel demand are normally conducted for the industrial sector as whole rather that at a more disaggregate level, a choice normally due to data availability. Motivated by the goal of developing the new industrial module adopted by the UK government Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) for their econometric Energy Demand Model, our paper reports results obtained as part of a three step estimation process, where in the first step we estimated the determinants of economic activity for 8 industrial subsectors, in the second step we estimated the determinants of energy demand (published elsewhere[1]) and in the third step, discussed here, we assess substitution across fuels in each of the industrial sub-sectors modelled in our research. Using data spanning from 1990 to 2014 on fuel consumption and prices published on the Digest of UK Energy Statistics, and indices of production collected by the Office for National Statistics we implement detailed fuel Read more…
Categories: Academic Papers, Energy demand, Energy economics
Tags: Energy Consumers Industrial, Energy demand, energy economics
Angnolucci-modelling-fuel-demand-of-heterogenerous-industrial-consumers.pptx 954.57 KBAgnolucci-Modelling-fuel-demand-of-heterogenerous-industrial-consumers.pdf 585.43 KBChris Harris , npower The fourth and fifth carbon budgets have challenges in implementation of current policies, and some remaining policy gaps. The Paris commitments are a further challenge. This will require radical change, not just in the efficient use of energy but in the way we live, work and travel in the next generation. Very substantial, if not almost complete electrification seems almost inevitable in any feasible compliant scenario. The gig economy will be a critical enabler for the changes to the rhythm of life, and is particularly suited to an electrified society. Technology, and its cost, does not seem a major constraint. The critical restriction is the ability of the physical system, market arrangements, regulation, and industry operations, to accommodate it. It is almost impossible to visualise a very low carbon system with infrastructure and operation with very large volumes of “predict and provide” central generation and capacity infrastructure to accommodate inflexible variable demand. Conversely it is relatively straightforward to envisage a very low carbon system with highly active prosumers. Further it is possible to visualise how the Read more…
Categories: Academic Papers, Energy economics
Tags: energy economics
Harris-no-one-left-behind.pptx 537.8 KBHarris-No-one-left-behind-consumer-empowerment-protection-and-universal-service-in-low-carbon-transition.pdf 874.53 KBPeter Bradley, University of the West of England Around the world there is strong interest in the use of energy feedback via smart metering technology as a mitigation option for businesses to reduce their energy use and mitigate greenhouse gases (GHGs). A number of relevant early studies have looked at energy feedback in an organizational setting. In order to bring about energy reductions, feedback provided needs to motivate changes in energy behaviours and practices within organisations. Social norms sometimes act as an extrinsic motivation for behaviours around particular energy services, particularly in a group setting. The majority of studies that have looked at social norms and energy related behaviours tend to only pick up on the role of injunctive (subjective) norms – driven by a view of what is socially acceptable – and not descriptive norms also – based on the perception of other peoples’ actions; and generally there are relatively few organisation based studies. The literature identifies that more research linking social influence mechanisms to behaviour change are needed; few field studies have looked at social norms and social Read more…
Categories: Academic Papers, Energy economics
Tags: energy and environment, Energy Consumers Industrial, Energy demand, energy economics, Smart Energy
Bradley-motivating-energy-conservation-in-organisations.pptx 841.12 KBBradley-motivating-energy-conservation-in-organistations.pdf 872.43 KBCristina Penasco, University of Cambridge Overview and relevance of the topic Improving energy efficiency (EE) is vital to ensure an economic, environmental and social sustainable energy system. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), increasing EE in buildings represents one of the most cost-effective ways to improve energy security and reduce the environmental damages from the current system. Residential sector represents approximately 19% of the total final energy consumption in the OECD in 2015, reaching a 30% in the UK, one of the highest rates in Europe (IEA, 2016). Many studies have highlighted the important role that public policy can play to reduce energy consumption in residential buildings (Geller et al. 2006). The IEA estimates that public policies can reduce energy consumption in residential buildings by 30-80%, while increasing energy security and improving welfare conditions. This is an ex-ante engineering-based assessment that makes important assumptions regarding the impact of new policies. However, there are a large number of policy and academic assessments of the impact of policies in building energy consumption that may not be accounting for social factors, information Read more…
Categories: Academic Papers, Energy economics, Energy efficiency, Energy policy
Tags: Energy Consumers - Domestic, energy economics, Energy efficiency, Energy policy
Penasco-Energy-efficiency-policy-instruments-in-the-residential-sector.pdf 973.76 KBDavid Deller, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia This paper maps the percentage of household expenditure devoted to energy in the UK over the past 25 years and relates this to energy policymaking. Mapping energy expenditure shares provides a solid evidence base for discussing the distributional aspects of the UK’s retail energy market. Recent high expenditure shares are placed in context with low energy expenditure shares in the late 1990s and early 2000s appearing more exceptional. Compared to earlier papers a serious energy expenditure measurement issue in the Living Costs and Food Survey, affecting households with pre-payment meters i.e. low income households, is identified and corrected. The failure to correct for this issue affects a number of previous works looking at the distribution of energy expenditures, energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions across households. Using the corrected dataset it is shown that statements that actual energy expenditures under-record fuel poverty relative to measures using required energy expenditures are overly simplistic: the relationship between the two expenditure metrics varies across groups and through time. The large variations in energy Read more…
Categories: Academic Papers, Energy economics, Energy policy
Tags: energy conomics, Energy Consumers - Domestic, Energy policy
Deller_UK_Energy_Expenditure_Shares_A_Long_Term_View.pptx 962.89 KBDeller_UK_Energy_Expenditures_Shares_A_Long_Term_View.pdf 1.02 MBMr Joachim Geske, Imperial College, London, United Kingdom Prof Richard Green, Imperial College Business School, United Kingdom Overview: Storage has the technical potential to increase efficiency of electrical systems significantly – especially in the context of integrating intermittent renewable technologies. This is achieved by shifting energy from periods of low demand to periods of high demand. Thus, the utilization of medium load power plants is increased and the utilization of peak load power plants is reduced. The full extent of efficiency gain is achieved if generation capacity is adapted to the “equilibrated” load situation – with a higher base load and lower peak load share. In this case, the installed fossil generation capacity falls below peak load level. Since the amount of energy stored is generally limited, there is a risk of outages in cases of prolonged demand peaks. This problem does not occur in perfect foresight based analyses that are still the paradigm of electrical system analysis. The subject of this analysis is to show how storage is operated optimally under renewable and load uncertainty in the system context. Methodology: We Read more…
Categories: Academic Papers, Electricity and nuclear, Energy economics, Energy modelling, Energy security
Tags: Renewables, Storage
GeskeGreen-Optimal-Storage-Management-Under-Uncertainty1.pdf 893.03 KBGeskeGreen-Optimal-Storage-Management-Under-Uncertainty.pdf 687.17 KBMr Martin Crouch, Ofgem, United Kingdom Dr Jeffrey Hardy, Ofgem, United Kingdom The energy system is undergoing a radical transformation from one that is largely centralised and carbon-intense to one that is carbon constrained, smart, (to some extent) decentralised and flexible. Our role as the energy system regulator is to ensure existing and future consumers’ interests are protected. But who are these future consumers and what is the energy system we are protecting their interests in? These questions are material today and are in part the driving force for several Ofgem projects, including our work on flexibility, future of retail regulation, quicker, more efficient connections and code governance reform. There are also potentially disruptive technologies and business models that could disrupt the market and set the energy system on a new paradigm. The recent trend on solar PV deployment is an example of this. These innovations could shape the future of the energy system. We recognised this in our Innovation Plan that we published in March 2016. It was also a key finding from our work on non-traditional Read more…
Categories: Academic Papers, Energy and environment, Energy demand, Energy economics, Energy policy, Energy security, Gas, Renewables
Tags: Consumers, Flexible, Innovation, Regulation, Transformation
Crouch_The_Role_of_Regulation_in_Supporting_Innovation1.pdf 1.12 MBCrouch_The_Role_of_Regulation_in_Supporting_Innovation.pdf 241.6 KBMr Niklas Hinkel, University of Cologne, Germany Following initial excitement about biofuels, competition between energy crops and food crops for resources came to the center of attention in the mid-2000s, when food prices rose distinctly. The resulting generalizing criticism on biofuels needs to be differentiated. In this project, I show under which circumstances food production profits from biofuels. Namely, if high export costs, caused by high fuel costs, seclude the producers of underutilized agricultural areas from global markets, an expansion of local biofuel production could be beneficial. It would lower fuel costs and thus, transport and export costs. Given favorable market conditions (prices globally are higher than locally plus respective transport costs), producers could now profitably export and increase food output up to their capacity limit. This project outlines the transition from the dependence of imports from volatile oil markets towards sustainable energy independence in the transport sector of a developing economy (in this case Zambia). The production of biofuel is a technological innovation in energy supply, which permits an increase in agricultural production. This augments welfare globally. If this increase Read more…
Categories: Academic Papers, Energy economics, Energy policy, Renewables
Tags: biofuel, endogenous transport costs, Zambia
Hinkel_-_More_Biofuels__More_Food.pdf 466.31 KBDr Amy O’Mahoney, Ofgem, United Kingdom Mr Kristian Marr, Ofgem,United Kingdom Shashi van de Graaff, Ofgem, United Kingdom Mr David Hall, Ofgem, United Kingdom In recent years, the generation mix in most electricity markets has been in transition, resulting in larger proportions of variable generation. In GB, wind and solar accounted for 13% and 5% of installed capacity respectively in 2015 , and 11.5% of generation over the same period. This intermittent generation is not always capable of delivering in periods of tightness, and thus contributes considerably less to peak demand. This development in the electricity market has led to changes to how the system is operated. As a result, more flexible thermal plant is now required to run differently than originally intended; wind generation has been shown increase the cycling of existing units (Troy et al., 2010). This relates to additional start-ups, ramping and operation at part load (Denny and O’Malley, 2009; Troy et al., 2010). Analysis of availabilities in other markets has indicated that the availability of CCGTs in GB is below those in comparable markets. Forced breakdown rates are Read more…
Categories: Academic Papers, Electricity and nuclear, Energy economics, Energy security
Tags: energy economics, Power system operation
OMahoney-The-Impact-Of-Tightening-Margins-On-Plant-Availability-slides.pdf 722.77 KBOMahoney-The-Impact-Of-Tightening-Margins-On-Plant-Availability1.pdf 698.22 KBFor priority access to our events & gain access to our downloadable resources
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