INCOSE Workshop: Modelling of Integrated Multi-Energy Networks – Current practices and innovation gaps

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:

• Dr N Mansor BEIS presentation (PDF: 0.8MB)
• C Clarke WWU Presentation (PDF: 4.4MB)
• M Barrett UCL presentation (PDF: 5.7MB)
• Dr S Walker Newcastle presentation (PDF: 1.3MB)
• M Qadrdan Cardiff presentation (PDF: 2.6MB)

Full Meeting Notes: 

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