Leading climate experts at Newcastle University, including our Hub Director Prof Phil Taylor, respond to today’s report calling on the UK to end its contribution to global warming within 30 years.

“We need to stop talking about low carbon solutions being too expensive and look instead at the cost of climate change if we don’t adopt them”
Professor Phil Taylor, Supergen EN Hub Director and Head of Engineering at Newcastle University

Ten years after the Climate Change Act became law, the Commission on Climate Change (CCC) has today issued a report calling on the UK to end its contribution to global warming within 30 years.

Setting an ambitious new target for the country to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050, the target is in line with the UK’s commitment under the Paris Agreement – the pact which the UK and the rest of the world signed in 2015 to curb dramatically the polluting gases that cause climate change.

The CCC’s recommended targets, which cover all sectors of the UK, Scottish and Welsh economies, are achievable with known technologies, alongside improvements in people’s lives, and should be put into law as soon as possible, the Committee says.

Task ahead “is immense but not insurmountable”
Emphasising the vital importance of limiting further warming to as low a level as possible and the need for deep and rapid emissions reductions in order to do so, the CCC report found that “the foundations are in place throughout the UK” and the policies required to deliver key pillars of a net-zero economy are already active or in development.

But leading energy expert Professor Phil Taylor, Head of Engineering at Newcastle University, said he did not agree the foundations were in place to decarbonise the UK.

“Achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions is necessary, feasible and cost effective but UK Policy is still way off the mark and the foundations are not in place to be able to meet this target,” says Professor Taylor, who is also Director of the EPSRC National Centre for Energy Systems Integration and the Supergen Energy Networks Hub.

“Even with all the evidence before us we are still opening new coal mines, extending Heathrow airport and flirting with fracking. We have unambitious building regulations, our drive to phase out petrol and diesel cars is too late, and we are withdrawing from carbon capture and storage demonstration.

“To have any hope of achieving the net-zero target we must move on from our obsession about decarbonising electricity and deal with more difficult challenges of decarbonising heating and transport as soon as possible.

“We need to stop talking about low carbon solutions being too expensive and look instead at the cost of climate change if we don’t adopt them. And we need to do this without delay. Due to the lag in the climate system we must recognise that even if we act now we will still see significant climate change between now and 2050.

“As a country that became wealthy from exploiting fossil fuels at the expense of the global climate we have a duty to lead the way in decarbonising.”

Phase out greenhouse gas emissions by 2050
Last month, Newcastle University signalled its commitment to climate change action by joining a number of organisations in the UK and all over the world to declare a climate emergency. The University has committed to further substantial progress in the de-carbonisation of its activities with the aim of achieving net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2040.

The CCC report found that:
The foundations are in place throughout the UK and the policies required to deliver key pillars of a net-zero economy are already active or in development. These include a supply of low-carbon electricity, efficient buildings and low-carbon heating, electric vehicles, developing carbon capture and storage technology and low-carbon hydrogen.

Policies will have to ramp up significantly for a ‘net-zero’ emissions target to be credible, given that most sectors of the economy will need to cut their emissions to zero by 2050. Government must set the direction and provide the urgency. The public will need to be engaged if the transition is to succeed. Serious plans are needed to clean up the UK’s heating systems, to deliver the infrastructure for carbon capture and storage technology and to drive transformational change in how we use our land.

The overall costs of the transition to a net-zero economy are manageable but they must be fairly distributed. Rapid cost reductions in essential technologies such as offshore wind and batteries for electric vehicles mean that a net-zero greenhouse gas target can be met at an annual cost of up to 1-2% of GDP to 2050. However, the costs of the transition must be fair, and must be perceived as such by workers and energy bill payers. The Committee recommends that the Treasury reviews how the remaining costs of achieving net- zero can be managed in a fair way for consumers and businesses.

This is a crucial time in the global effort to tackle climate change. In the last ten years, pledges to reduce emissions by the countries of the world have reduced the forecast of global warming from above 4°C by the end of the century to around 3°C. Net-zero in the UK would lead the global effort to further limit the rise to 1.5°C.

Welcoming the report, Hayley Fowler, Professor of Climate Change Impacts at Newcastle University, said:

“The world has already warmed more than one degree since pre-industrial times, with human activity the major cause.

“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently released a report that stated that to keep below 1.5 degrees warmer we need to reduce our CO2 emissions by 50% in the next 12 years and to zero by 2050. For a 2-degree threshold we still need to reduce our emissions by half within the next 30 years.

“This challenge is necessary as we are already seeing the impacts of climate change: more powerful and intense storm events, flooding, droughts and sea level rise and science tells us that 2 degrees or warming brings us to some dangerous tipping points or thresholds that will serious affect human society.

“The scale of change is immense but not insurmountable. I welcome the publication of the new report today which sets out ambitious targets for phasing out CO2 emissions by 2050 to end the UK’s contribution to global warming.

“The UK has been a leader in this area since the Climate Change Act was implemented over 10 years ago. Climate change is a serious concern for us and future generations and we must start to make easy and more difficult changes to our lifestyles to reduce emissions, with the lead from Government as set out in the new report.”

Benefits of a zero-carbon economy

Newcastle University’s Professor Richard Dawson, who was recently appointed to the CCC Adaptation Committee, adds:

“Limiting climate change to 2oC will have significant benefits in terms of reducing the impact it will have.

“Analysis undertaken by the Adaptation Committee of the CCC for the 2017 Climate Change Risk Assessment shows the benefits to the UK economy and public wellbeing in terms of reduced infrastructure disruption

“For example, a 2oC rise would put 20-50% more roads and railways at high flood risk, whereas a 4oC rise would increase this to 70-160% in the worst case scenario.”

There are multiple benefits of the transition to a zero-carbon economy, the Committee’s report shows. These include benefits to people’s health from better air quality, less noise thanks to quieter vehicles, more active travel thanks to increased rates of cycling and walking, healthier diets, and increased recreational benefits from changes to land use.

In addition, the UK could receive an industrial boost as it leads the way in low-carbon products and services including electric vehicles, finance and engineering, carbon capture and storage and hydrogen technologies with potential benefits for exports, productivity and jobs.

Lord Deben, Chairman of the Committee on Climate Change, said: “We can all see that the climate is changing and it needs a serious response. The great news is that it is not only possible for the UK to play its full part – we explain how in our new report – but it can be done within the cost envelope that Parliament has already accepted. The Government should accept the recommendations and set about making the changes needed to deliver them without delay.”

Event overview

Energy networks are vitally important enablers for the UK energy sector and therefore UK industry and society. Energy networks have a key role to play in achieving the goals set out in the UK government’s Industrial Strategy, most notably in terms of the clean growth aspects. Energy networks exist primarily to exploit and facilitate temporal and spatial diversity in energy production and use and to exploit economies of scale where they exist. The energy trilemma (energy security, environmental impact and social cost) presents many complex interconnected challenges which reach beyond the UK and have huge relevance internationally. These challenges vary considerably from region to region due to historical, geographic, political, economic and cultural reasons. As technology and society changes so do these challenges, and therefore the planning, design and operation of energy networks needs to be revisited and optimised. Current energy networks research and practices do not fully embrace a whole systems approach and is therefore not developing a deep enough understanding of the interconnected and interdependent nature of energy network infrastructure. The recent development of local energy systems and global energy internet bring further uncertainties and challenges to the development of our energy systems.

There is a lack of modelling experience and skills in this area, a lack of replicable models, a shortage of commercial software and a lack of awareness of the value of integrated multi-energy networks in the UK, in order to understand better the linkages among different energy vector networks, ICT, policy, markets, and risk; shape the future energy development; and understand how external factors which may lead to significant change in the way we expect energy networks to be planned and operated. With an excellent line-up of invited participants, this one-day workshop shared current best practices in multi-energy system modelling and discussed how to address the barriers and identifying the innovation gaps.

This invitation-only workshop took place on 12th April 2019 at Imperial College London.  It was jointly organised by INCOSE UK Energy Systems Interest Group and the EPSRC Supergen Energy Networks Hub, with support from Energy Systems Catapult and the UK Energy Research Centre.

Presentations:

Full Meeting Notes: 

Workshop on Modelling of Integrated Multi-Energy Networks – Full Notes

Prof Vladimir Terzija creates bridges with Chinese academic and industrial partners and talks about his recent academic visits to China.

About the Author:

Prof Vladimir Terzija is a Co-Investigator of the £5 million EPSRC funded Supergen Energy Networks Hub. Since 2006 he has been the EPSRC Chair Professor in Power System Engineering with the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Manchester. From 2000 to 2006, he was a senior specialist for switchgear and distribution automation with ABB, Ratingen, Germany. Over the last decade he has been the PI on several large scale EPSRC, Network Innovation Competition (Ofgem) and Horizon 2020 projects. His current research interests include smart grid applications; wide-area monitoring, protection and control; switchgear and transient processes; ICT, data analytics and digital signal processing applications in multi-energy systems.

Prof Terzija is Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Electrical Power and Energy Systems, Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, IEEE Fellow, as well as a DAAD and Taishan Scholar. He is the National Thousand Talents Distinguished Professor at Shandong University, China. For his contributions in creating bridges between Chinese and UK academic institutions, in 2018 he was awarded with the prestigious Qilu Friendship Award.

Contact details: vladimir.terzija@manchester.ac.uk            Prof. Vladimir Terzija’s Profile

Since joining The University of Manchester, I have been collaborating with a number of Chinese academic institutions, including Shandong University, Tsinghua University, North China Electric Power University and Tianjin University. This has resulted in a number of collaborative activities relating to future Smart Grid solutions and implementation of novel ICT and sensor technology.

As a Visiting Professor at the Shandong University I lead a research team involving both Professors and PhD students. Jointly with the Tsinghua University, I support their research on power system protection and control.

Since 2017, I have attended several high impact events organised by Chinese partners and related to multi-energy networks. I will briefly update you about them in the following text.

The 1st and the 2nd IEEE Conference on Energy Internet and Energy System Integration, Beijing, China
The 1st conference was held in December 2017, whereas the 2nd conference was held in October 2018. Both events were held in Beijing.

The conference focuses on innovative technologies and practical implementations around “Energy Internet” and “Energy System Integration” (EI2). These can be interpreted as the fusion of energy systems with information technologies and artificial intelligence, as well as, the coupling of multiple energy systems (e.g., heating, cooling, electricity, gas, and transportation). This conference promotes innovative EI2 technologies and practical applications which aim to fully realize the interconnection, openness, sharing, and collaboration of various energy resources, and to create green, low-carbon, high-efficiency and low-cost smart energy systems.

The conference has offered opportunities to share experience on a number of topics and I was privileged to meet two of my respected colleagues, who are currently acting Editors in Chief of the hey(? Need to check this with VT) journals relevant for our profession: Prof Nikos Hatziargyriou (IEEE Transactions on Power Systems) and Prof Jianhui Wang (IEEE Trans on Smart Grid). We exchanged our experiences in leading our international journals and discussed how to incorporate, in our journals, results relevant to multi-energy systems/networks.


GEI Panel Discussion on 26th September 2018 in Jinan, Shandong Province, China
A Global Energy Interconnection (GEI) panel discussion was held as a part of a more general Forum, attended by the leading Chinese and international authorities interested in future challenges of energy related industries.

GEI is a clean energy-dominant, electric-centric modern energy system that is globally interconnected, jointly constructed and mutually beneficial to all. It is an important platform for large-scale development, transmission and consumption of clean energy resources worldwide. In essence, GEI is “Smart Grid + UHV Grid + Clean Energy”.

The panel has been moderated by Sr Michel Sterling and discussed the following two questions:

Question 1: Based on your own special fields and experience, could you please share with us your thoughts on how universities, research institutions and international organizations shall play their respective advantages to promote the innovation development of GEI?

Question 2: Could you forecast what unprecedented opportunities will GEI bring, and what kind of cooperation mechanism shall be established as institutional support, so as to guide all parties to participate in the development of GEI?

As one of panellists, I tried to address those issues linking strategies relevant to academia, industry and global society. In this context, I elaborated the concept in which the benefits for the global society should be enabled through joint collaborative work between industry and academia. This collaboration should be fair, open and honest. Industry can help academia to shape the directions of the university research activities, putting to the top of agenda the interest of the society we are leaving in. A typical example are efforts towards reduction of CO2 emission, or optimal operation of multi-energy systems. I particularly discussed the advantages of integration of massive power systems across the globe. In my address, I just reminded the respected audience that e.g. when it comes to solar energy, it is always somewhere available and could be used anywhere in the World, or stored locally, or somewhere remotely.

From the perspective of the cooperation mechanisms, I insisted on the collaboration in which younger researchers, creative and ambitious to contribute to new and high quality innovation, should be particularly involved at all spheres of the collaboration.

December 2018 Gathering with the Premier of China at the Great Hall of the People, Beijing, China
This event focused on the global challenges of Chinese Government in terms of the selection of an appropriate strategy on how to move forward (move forward with what?). The host of the event was the Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, Mr Keqiang Li. Three Nobel Prize Laureates gave their personal views about the future technological and societal development of China. One of them was Prof Kostya Novoselov (The University of Manchester). In his address, an interesting and exciting information about the future role of “smart materials” opened very vibrant discussions, leading to conclusions that a number of new opportunities for future collaboration are indeed very obvious.

The conclusion is that instead of insisting on the “speed of technological development” the focus should be on the “quality of this development”. This is also directly tackling movements in the sphere of energy systems and networks. Their future development should include attributes like “high quality standards”, “high quality solutions” etc. Just putting the speed of the development to the top of the agenda, might lead to sub-optimal solutions and not the top quality of the innovation. My personal impression was that the planned research activities within our Supergen Energy Networks Hub indeed insist on the quality research, instead on the quantity of results and uncontrolled rush towards scheduled targets

More information of the event and videos of the discussions is available online.

In conclusion, the activities related to Energy Networks development in China is very intensive and the Supergen Energy Networks Hub look forward to collaborating with the above mentioned Chinese partners.

The NUAcT Fellowship programme will recruit 100 new fellows over the next 5 years.

The NUAcT (Newcastle University Academic Track) Fellowship programme is now open for applications. This new programme offers five year, well resourced, academic-track Fellowships in any discipline. Beginning in 2019, the University is recruiting 100 new Fellows over the next 5 years.

All NUAcT Fellows will get:


NUAcT Targeted Fellowships in energy

In addition to the open call, two Targeted Fellowship opportunities are likely of particular interest to researchers working in the field of energy:


The Fellows appointed to both of these roles will have the opportunity to join large multidisciplinary centres in carrying out their research, including:


How to apply
You can find further information on how to apply and eligibility criteria on the University’s NUAcT web pages.

Recruitment is underway for this 3.5 year PhD Studentship sponsored by Northern Powergrid in Newcastle University’s School of Engineering.

The transition from Distribution Network Operator (DNO) to Distribution System Operator (DSO) is a complex issue with many possible options for restructuring the distribution sector. Identifying the most appropriate structures that can achieve the best whole system outcome requires advanced understanding of interplays between the operation of markets for energy and for network services, network operation, infrastructure development and the growth of distributed energy resources (DERs).

This studentship will consider the problem of how to accommodate large values of distributed energy resources (DERs) at the least cost, while at the same time delivering value to DERs so that they can thrive in market based conditions.

Supervised by CESI Co-Investigator Dr Haris Patsios and Dr Peter Davison, both in the University’s School of Engineering, the successful candidate will receive 100% of tuition fees paid and annual living expenses of £14,777 (full award).

Sponsor
Northern Powergrid

Studentship Duration
April 2019 for 3.5 years

Application closing date
28 February 2019

Further information
Further information, including how to apply and eligibility criteria, please see the Studentship web page.

Contact Dr Haris Patsios about this opportunity

Dr Sara Walker, a keen advocate of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), discusses the EDI imbalances in engineering and how the Supergen Energy Networks Hub hopes to address it.

About the Author:

Dr Sara Walker is an Assistant Director and Co-Investigator of the £5 million EPSRC funded Supergen Energy Networks Hub. Additionally she is also Associate Director and Co-Investigator at CESI. Her research focus is regarding renewable energy technology and transitions to low carbon systems, with a particular focus on policy and building scale solutions. She is Director of Expertise for Infrastructure at the School of Engineering at Newcastle University.

Contact details: sara.walker@ncl.ac.uk     Dr Sara Walker’s Profile 

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Engineering
I recently attended and event called ‘Data Driven Culture Change’ at the Royal Academy of Engineering where the startling results of an industry survey showed:

That means those activities typically aren’t aligned to any strategic plan and the impact of activities aren’t being measured, in the majority of cases.

The Royal Academy of Engineering has a vision to address the engineering skills and diversity challenge. The scale of the diversity issue is being reported more frequently in the mainstream press, particularly recently with the gender pay gap reporting hitting headlines:

Across the energy sector, Powerful Women report a similarly disappointing picture for the top 80 energy companies.


The Supergen Energy Networks Hub wishes to better understand EDI for the community, to develop and implement good practice in EDI in the way we engage with the community, and to create a sense of belonging for all regardless of background.

Why?
Well firstly because it is the right thing to do. Discrimination is not something we wish to support. We intend to engage widely in a way which is inclusive to all.

And secondly, because it is good for research.  Diverse teams outperform homogenous teams for creativity and innovation, which is just what we are looking for in order to tackle the thorny issue of future energy networks.

Thirdly, it makes business sense.  There is strong evidence that diversity in the workplace results in better financial performance (Powerful Women report companies in the top quartile for gender diversity outperform those in the bottom quartile by 35%).

Our approach to EDI for the Supergen Energy Networks Hub is:

  1. To initially audit EDI statistics of the community who we engage with
  2. To ask the community where their needs lie with regards to EDI
  3. To investigate and implement best practice in our own activities around events, recruitment, flexible funding and the many other ways in which we interact with our community
  4. To agree an action plan for the 4 year duration of the Hub.
  5. To continually monitor EDI, to evaluate the impact of the Action Plan, and to update it as required.


Complete our first EDI audit here.

Get in touch if you would like more information at supergenEN@newcastle.ac.uk

Researchers based at Newcastle University from the EPSRC funded Supergen Energy Networks Hub (SEN) and National Centre for Energy Systems Integration (CESI), Seyed Hamid Reza Hosseini and Adib Allahham, along with the Coal Authority, Charlotte Adams, will soon publish their journal paper in IET Smart Grid.

About the Author: Dr Adib Allahham

Dr Adib Allahham is a Research Associate within the Power Systems Research Team, School of Engineering, Newcastle University and currently works on several projects including the Supergen Energy Networks Hub and EPSRC National Centre for Energy Systems Integration (CESI).  Adib received his PhD from the University of Joseph Fourier in the field of control engineering. His research involves projects around the electricity distribution and off-grid power sector and multi-vector energy systems. These projects are addressing the need to cost efficiently decarbonise the energy sector over the next thirty years by facilitating innovative network integration of new generation, and the integration of different energy vectors (electricity, gas, and heat). Computer simulation, laboratory investigation and demonstration projects are used together to produce new knowledge that delivers this requirement. He has published more than 25 technical papers in leading journals and conferences.

Adib Allahham contact details: adib.allahham@ncl.ac.uk @adiballahham and profile details

About the paper:
The UK Government has committed to a ‘Net Zero’ carbon economy by 2050 [1]. One major source of carbon emission is associated with heat demand from the domestic, commercial and industrial sectors.

Providing for heat demand accounts for around one third of UK carbon emissions [2]. In order to decarbonise the provision of heat, it is essential to increase the penetration of Low Carbon Energy Sources[1] (LCESs) in Smart Multi Energy Grids (SMEGs), i.e. integrated gas, electricity, and district heating and cooling networks [3,4]. This, consequently, has impact on the operation of SMEGs from the Techno-Economic-Environment (TEE) point of view [5,28].

Recent work on the geothermal potential of the UK’s flooded abandoned mining infrastructure has revealed a subsurface resource in place of 2.2 billion GWh [11]. The impact of integrating this vast supply and storage potential on the operation and planning of SMEGs needs to be evaluated in terms of TEE aspects.

The paper identifies research gaps, including neglecting the electricity requirements of the components of the geothermal system that is required to boost the hot water quality and presents an evaluation framework for the Techno-Economic-Environmental (TEE) performance of Integrated Multi-Vector Energy Networks (IMVENs) including geothermal energy. Geothermal Energy Storage (GES), offers huge potential for both energy storage and supply and can play a critical role in decarbonising heat load of Smart Multi Energy Grids.

Fig.1 Schematic of the considered Smart Electricity Network (SEN), Gas Network (GN) and District Heating Network (DHN)

The two most common types of GES, i.e. High Temperature GES (HTGES) and Low Temperature GES (LTGES), were modelled and integrated within the framework which evaluates the impact of different low carbon energy sources including HTGES, LTGES, wind and PV on the amount of energy imported from upstream, operational costs and emissions of IMVENs to meet the heat load of a region.

Data from a real-world case study was used to compare the TEE performance of the considered IMVEN configurations for meeting the heat load. Data included wind and PV generation, as well as the heat and electricity load for a representative winter week of a small rural village in Scotland. 

Fig. 2 The schematic of all the possible configurations of IMVEN considered in this paper

The results reveal that the most efficient, cost effective and least carbon intensive configurations for meeting the heat load of the case study are the configurations benefitting from HTGES, from a high penetration of heat pumps and from LTGES, respectively.

References:

  1. [1] ‘Net Zero – The UK´s contribution to stopping global warming’, https://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Net-Zero-The-UKs-contribution-to-stopping-global-warming.pdf, accessed 20 December 2019
  2. [2] ‘Clean Growth – Transforming Heating: Overview of Current Evidence, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/766109/decarbonising-heating.pdf, accessed 20 December 2019
  3. [3] Ceseña E.A.M., Mancarella P.: ‘Energy Systems Integration in Smart Districts: Robust Optimisation of Multi-Energy Flows in Integrated Electricity, Heat and Gas Networks’, IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, 2019, 10, (1), pp. 1122-1131
  4. [4] Lund, H., Andersen, A.N., Østergaard, P.A., et al.: ‘From electricity smart grids to smart energy systems – A market operation based approach and understanding’, Energy, 42, (1), pp. 96-102
  5. [5] Hosseini, S.H.R., Allahham, A., Taylor, P.: ‘Techno-economic-environmental analysis of integrated operation of gas and electricity networks’. Proc. IEEE Int. Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), Florence, Italy, May 2018, pp. 1–5
  6. [28] Hosseini, S.H.R., Allahham, A., Walker, S.L., et al.: ‘Optimal planning and operation of multi-vector energy networks: A systematic review’, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2020, 133, 110216
  7. [11] Adams, C., Monaghan, A., Gluyas, J.: ‘Mining for heat’, Geoscientist, 2019, 29, (4), pp. 10-15