DECC 2050 Energy Calculator

DECC 2050 Energy Calculator and some related papers

The 2050 calculator allows users to examine the effect on energy transition of a wide range of parameters, such as home insulation and average temperature, growth in industry, commercial demand for heating and cooling, shift to zero emission transport, domestic freight, and international shipping. The calculator, together with links to its source code and information on its assumptions, is available at
http://2050-calculator-tool.decc.gov.uk/#/home

Aspects of the UK’s transition to low carbon energy are discussed in the following open access papers, along with comments on the DECC 2050 calculator. 

The UK low carbon energy transition: prospects and challenges
TJ Foxon, PJG Pearson - Carbon Governance, Climate Change …, 2014 [PDF] cf.ac.uk

Under the 2008 Climate Change Act, the UK has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. This implies a radical transformation of systems for meeting energy service demands - in particular, a transition to a low carbon system of electricity generation and supply. Despite efforts by the UK Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to examine pathways to 2050, most of the focus in UK energy policy has been on the shorter term reforms needed to incentivise high levels of investment in low carbon generation technologies, embedded in the Energy Bill currently going through the UK Parliament. This chapter draws on work by the authors and colleagues on UK low carbon transition pathways for the electricity sector to 2050 (Hammond and Pearson, 2013; Foxon, 2013) to examine the drivers and consequences of alternative low carbon pathways, and reflect on the implications for current UK energy policy measures. This suggests that governance models with different roles for government, business and civil society could lead to quite different low carbon futures, so that which model dominates could have a significant influence on the direction of change and the risks and challenges to be addressed. Whilst a hybrid government market form of governance appears to be emerging, there still seems to be a relatively small role for civil society in influencing the pathway to a low carbon future. 

The implications of upstream emissions from the power sector
GP Hammond, A O'Grady - Proceedings of the Institution of Civil …, 2014 – opus.bath.ac.uk

Upstream environmental burdens arise from the need to expend energy resources in order to extract and deliver fuel to a power station or other users. They include the energy requirements for extraction, processing/refining, transport and fabrication, as well as methane leakages from coal mining activities - a major contribution - and natural gas pipelines. The upstream carbon dioxide emissions associated with various power generators and UK electricity transition pathways towards a 'low carbon' future have been evaluated on a 'whole systems' basis. Carbon dioxide capture facilities coupled to fossil-fuelled plants are shown, for example, to deliver only a 70% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (including both upstream and operational emissions), in contrast to the normal presumption of a 90% saving. In addition, the present UK greenhouse gas trajectories associated with transition pathways to 2050 are found to differ significantly from those produced by the British government's Department of Energy and Climate Change and its independent Committee on Climate Change. These bodies do not currently account for upstream, 'fugitive' greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, there will actually remain further emissions upstream that are unaccounted for, even if the current UK carbon dioxide equivalent reduction targets are apparently met.

Carbon reduction scenarios for 2050: An explorative analysis of public preferences
P Allen, T Chatterton - Energy policy, 2013 – Elsevier [pdf UWE]

This paper presents an analysis of public preferences for a low carbon future UK and compares them with three future scenarios proposed by the UK government based on data from 10,983 self-selected participants who engaged in the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change ‘My2050’ online simulation. Participants expressed a stronger preference for demand-side options than for supply-side ones. They also chose fuel switching (to electricity) and technical energy efficiency measures above more behaviour focused options. Renewable energy options (wind, solar, marine and hydro) were preferred to other low carbon supply options (nuclear power, carbon capture and storage), with offshore wind power more popular than onshore. Nuclear power was the least popular generation option. Acceptability of the government′s three proposed scenarios was tested by comparing these scenarios with the research findings. Greatest support was suggested for the two scenarios emphasising business greenness, home energy efficiency, electrification of home heating and travel behaviour. The lowest level of support was demonstrated for the scenario based on significant growth in nuclear power with minimal increases in energy efficiency. Despite issues regarding the representivity of the sampled respondents, the work demonstrates the possibility of using outputs from the tool to assess publically preferred pathways.

Land use implications of future energy system trajectories—The case of the UK 2050 Carbon Plan
DD Konadu, ZS Mourão, JM Allwood, KS Richards… - Energy Policy, 2015 – Elsevier

The UK's 2008 Climate Change Act sets a legally binding target for reducing territorial greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, relative to 1990 levels. Four pathways to achieve this target have been developed by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, with all pathways requiring increased use of bioenergy. A significant amount of this could be indigenously sourced from crops, but will increased domestic production of energy crops conflict with other agricultural priorities?
To address this question, a coupled analysis of the UK energy system and land use has been developed. The two systems are connected by the production of bioenergy, and are projected forwards in time under the energy pathways, accounting for various constraints on land use for agriculture and ecosystem services.
The results show different combinations of crop yield and compositions for the pathways lead to the appropriation of between 7% and 61% of UK's agricultural land for bioenergy production. This could result in competition for land for food production and other land uses, as well as indirect land use change in other countries due to an increase in bioenergy imports. Consequently, the potential role of bioenergy in achieving UK emissions reduction targets may face significant deployment challenges.

Modelling urban scale retrofit, pathways to 2050 low carbon residential building stock
S Lannon, A Georgakaki, S Macdonald - 2013 – era.lib.ed.ac.uk

A bottom up engineering modelling approach has been used to investigate the pathways to 2050 low carbon residential building stock. The impact of housing retrofit, renewable technologies, occupant behaviour, and grid decarbonisation is measured at a local authority scale. The results of this exercise were visualised using a client web application, or ‘demonstrator,’ which was developed to allow stakeholders to engage with the modelling process.

The evolution of electricity demand and the role for demand side participation, in buildings and transport
J Barton, S Huang, D Infield, M Leach, D Ogunkunle… - Energy Policy, 2013 – Elsevier         [PDF] strath.ac.ak

This paper explores the possible evolution of UK electricity demand as we move along three potential transition pathways to a low carbon economy in 2050. The shift away from fossil fuels through the electrification of demand is discussed, particularly through the uptake of heat pumps and electric vehicles in the domestic and passenger transport sectors. Developments in the way people and institutions may use energy along each of the pathways are also considered and provide a rationale for the quantification of future annual electricity demands in various broad sectors. The paper then presents detailed modelling of hourly balancing of these demands in the context of potential low carbon generation mixes associated with the three pathways. In all cases, hourly balancing is shown to be a significant challenge. To minimise the need for conventional generation to operate with very low capacity factors, a variety of demand side participation measures are modelled and shown to provide significant benefits. Lastly, projections of operational greenhouse gas emissions from the UK and the imports of fossil fuels to the UK for each of the three pathways are presented.

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