Transforming the Energy System
This post offers notes on and references from an online course entitled "Transforming Energy Systems: Why Governance Matters", produced by IGov [1] at the University of Exeter, led by Professor Catherine Mitchell, and presented on the FutureLearn platform. The course examines energy governance and its relationship to energy system transformations in the context of the pressing need for a decarbonised, secure, affordable and just energy system to tackle climate change [2]. The focus of attention here will be on those aspects of the course concerned with the UK, and particularly on the recommendations made for reform of the UK system. Four interrelated key factors are identified as central to the transformation of a centralised system originally designed for the one-way flow of energy from generation through to consumption into a system which meets today's needs [3],[4]. These factors are decarbonisation, decentralisation, digitalisation and democratisatio