Bottle-necks and behaviour change in the drive towards green energy

Future Cities Forum's report part two, 'Energy, wind farms and localised pricing' looks at the Scottish perspective on the future for green energy and what the new Labour government might do with the creation of Great British Energy. Both the University of Strathclyde and the University of Edinburgh took part in our discussion.

Professor Keith Bell joined the University of Strathclyde in 2005 having previously worked as a researcher in Bath, Manchester and Naples and as a system development engineer in the electricity supply industry in Britain. He was appointed to the ScottishPower Chair in Smart Grids in late 2013 and became one of the co-Directors of the UK Energy Research Centre in 2014. In July 2018, along with Ian Cotton, he became Scientific Director of the Electrical Infrastructure Research Hub established by the University of Strathclyde with the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult and the University of Manchester and, in April 2019, became a member of the Committee on Climate Change.

He is an invited expert member of CIGRE Study Committee C1 on System Development and Economics, a member of the Executive Board of the Power Systems Computation Conference and a member of the Executive Committee of the IET Power Academy, an initiative to promote electric power engineering as a graduate career in the UK. He is a Chartered Engineer and, at different times, has advised the Scottish Government, the Republic of Ireland government, Ofgem and the UK Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on power systems issues as well as being active in a number of engineering research projects in collaboration with UK and European industry and academic partners.

Professor Bell was asked about the bottle neck of energy supply from Scotland to the UK and what can be done to resolve the problem:

Keith stated:

'The approach of Ofgem and ESO is to give the right to pair up connection agreements of projects - consulted on with the industry as a whole - for planning permission and industry is in favour of this because they are being held up. Ultimately it might require some legal intervention. It is very slow to sort out. Ofgem published proposals two years ago. It comes back to the way these infrastructures are regulated. They need a lot of investment and maintenance. They were privatised to attract private capital. Operating costs in electricity have reduced, so that's positive. I was working in a previous career attending to the bottleneck, but nothing much has changed. Regulators are concerned about excessive expenditure. Companies do not take on enough people to design etc. It all lags.

'The key thing is confidence. If there is an uncertainty that a user will not turn up, the investment is not made. We need to establish how many applications are going to go ahead over a number of years that can be well managed. Look at the installation of heat pumps. Where does the confidence come from? Planning does not happen and fast enough. There is uncertainty related to government policy on heat pumps and EVs. The previous government said we need a national energy system operator (NESO). It hasn't been quite signed into practice yet, probably sometime in the autumn. They have been recruiting. Where is the balance between NESO and local authorities? Should local communities have a say in whether they want choices in heat pumps or something else? Heat pumps require a critical mass to work. The authority to say you must do this is missing.

'There is research from Sussex University looking at the Netherlands on how technology has evolved. However, they are finding the same kind of resistance that we are seeing in the UK. From the research. progress seems better on rules for new homes and stopping the use of gas. They have managed to install lots of heat pumps into new homes there. That is driving the market and that helps to build up the supply chain.

'There is an interesting debate on whether it should be public sector led for electric vehicles (EVs) or commercially led. I am sceptical about the latter because of the issue of scarcity. In Scotland the public led approach looks like the EV infrastructure does not power fast enough.

'Location pricing in rural communities is also challenging. Economists say it is the answer to everything, as it realises trade offs. But is it the right place? Electricity will be cheaper at different times and this depends on location. In other countries the authorities have been reluctant to spell out these signals to users. There have been post code lottery worries and nervousness about political fallout. In Scotland, we have all wind resource we need, but sending it south means it will be more expensive for people in London. Fine grain signalling out is difficult. The developer of a wind farm could do a deal with revenues, administered by local authorities. 'Burning off' of individual bills to some people looks like a bribe. Others like the community shared benefits concept. It is a policy challenge.'

Strathclyde University is one of Europe’s leading and largest power systems and energy technology university research groups. Its 200 staff and researchers engage in a diverse range of collaborative, multidisciplinary research programmes, addressing issues such as the creation of sustainable energy systems, to the development of condition monitoring technologies and asset investment planning for major electricity companies.

The Energy Systems Research Unit (ESRU) is a cross-discipline research group concerned with new approaches to built environment energy utilisation and the introduction of sustainable means of energy supply at various scales. ESRU is located within the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and operates the BRE Centre for Energy Utilisation.

The Centre for Energy Policy (CEP) at the University of Strathclyde works with research, government and industry partners to understand and address the pressing public policy challenge of ensuring transitions to mid-century net zero targets deliver sustainable and more equitable prosperity.

Since its launch in 2015, CEP has established a solid track record of independent, rigorous and multidisciplinary research and timely and responsive knowledge exchange and policy engagement on energy and climate issues set in a wider public policy context. Focused on achieving real-world impacts, the Centre has helped shape UK and Scottish Government policy in areas including energy efficiency, industrial decarbonisation, heat decarbonisation and low carbon transport.

Dr Jess Britton from the University of Edinburgh also joined the discussion to talk about the behaviour change that will be necessary to move effectively to renewable energy in the UK. She is a Research Fellow within the Local and Regional Energy Systems theme of the UK Energy Research Centre, working on the local governance and policy needs for smart, flexible energy systems. Jess' research focusses on understanding the role of decentralised actors in achieving net-zero energy systems, and how this relates to local, regional and national governance structures.

This incorporates research on interactions between decentralised energy systems and political devolution, the role of local governments, as well as smart cities and how energy business models are changing. Her PhD examined the development of heat networks in the UK and Germany with an emphasis on the role of municipal utilities.

Previously she was an ESRC post-doctoral fellow at the University of Exeter and worked on the EPRSC project IGov (Innovation and Governance for future energy systems). She also researches gender and diversity within the energy industry and the research community.

Jess said:

'There is a lack of proper conversation around the future of green energy, although the progress to date around de-carbonisation has been quite good, in that we have moved away from coal. But the bigger issue involves going forward with creating change in peoples' lives. There are issues around getting people to use EVs more and improve the heating systems in their homes. This requires engagement with people and holding a debate around the challenges of these new innovations.

'In European countries, the debates have been quite polarising particularly around the grid infrastructure and trying to bring in stronger policies on heating and you can see in Germany that this has created a step back. It has been a contested issue in terms of perceptions of fairness. It is accepted now that hydrogen will play a small role in domestic heating, but the question is whether the move towards asking people to install new heating innovations in the home, such as heat pumps, is fair for everyone. Technologies are unfamiliar at the moment and people are not getting the information. We need to be better on education. The Netherlands might have lessons for the UK. They have taken a bottom up approach, with a respect for individual places, ie what will they look like. It has been a neighbourhood approach and research has been produced in a spatial way. This has been used as a communication tool and very much with a focus on a sense of place.

'The picture in terms of local energy planning varies across the UK and resources differ in different regions and local districts. Therefore tough choices about what you fund have to be taken. It is helpful to have centralised technical skills and data that local authorities can use but then apply to their own boroughs.

'Behaviour change will become more important with changes to peoples' diet, travel plans for example. The UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) has been asking the question - can we meet our carbon budget through reducing demand? Some technologies by contract such as carbon capture from buildings are not yet proved at scale so it might be worth considering the concept of reducing demand. We have a supply problem around demand and in future it has to be flexible. The policy of reduction of demand is developing but it has a long way to go. However, National Grid's recent programme getting people interested in the challenges around the gas price crisis worked well. People were willing to be engaged.'

The University of Edinburgh is involved in the UK Energy Research Centre Phase 3’s Energy Pathways theme, which is examining the UK’s energy transition in an uncertain world, and the synergies and trade-offs between the key drivers for this transition. The research will analyse pathways that meet current UK policy targets for reducing emissions, and will compare them to others in which other energy system drivers overwhelm low carbon policies, or the future direction of policy changes dramatically.

Future Cities Forum would like to thank both Professor Keith Bell and Dr Jess Britton for taking part in our research discussion and report, which also involved energy systems and sustainability experts from Buro Happold and HOK.

Image below: courtesy of National Grid ESO