Community Energy Literature Review

    Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted much discussion of energy supply issues and the possibility of energy rationing.  Earl (2020) cited the head of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, on the risk of energy shortages and rationing in Europe in the coming winter and the need for governments to reduce consumer demand and secure alternative energy supplies. The IEA had earlier called for restrictions on driving and air travel.  An article on the economic aspects of the situation points to the increasing risk of recession (Bakkum, 2022). The author considers it likely that “Russia will cut off more gas supplies to Europe” and notes that “Germany and the Netherlands have already moved to an emergency gas plan” prioritising energy security over climate ambitions. An opinion piece from Euromoney argues that energy price caps are unlikely to solve the problem for Europe which will be “running on empty by March”: it advocates testing the systems and pra...

  Three of the papers cited below address aspects of climate change mitigation in relation to supply and demand.   A conference paper by Clora and Yu (2021) concentrates on decarbonizing the European economy, which will require interventions on both the supply-side and the demand-side in many sectors.   As examples of action on climate change, the authors list the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy, changes to agricultural production systems, more energy-efficient buildings and production processes, and the movement towards low carbon diets and greener modes of transport. They point out that these actions change both demand and supply, and patterns of production and consumption between different sectors and countries. This can have the effect of altering trade flows and the carbon emissions which traded goods embody. The term carbon leakage is used to describe the way in which decreased carbon emissions in one country may lead to rising emissions elsewhere. Th...

  The production and use of different forms of energy have been mapped geographically for a variety of reasons, and some examples will be outlined briefly before describing a recent place-based energy calculator for the UK. Scales of mapping vary in the examples from the global through region, country, city and parish down to city block. Both energy production and use have been mapped by type, such as coal, gas and oil, wind and solar renewables, by the associated emissions, and by energy flows between geographical regions. The purpose and the intended audience vary from case to case. The Global Atlas for Renewable Energy is a resource coordinated by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) which “allows its users to find maps of renewable energy resources for locations across the world.” (Global Atlas for Renewable Energy, 2021). The Global Solar Atlas provides information on irradiation levels on land worldwide within a suitable range of latitudes, and calculates t...

          According to the International Energy Agency, “50% of global final energy consumption in 2018” was used in heating, contributing 40% of global CO2 emissions (IEA, 2019). Just under half of the heat “was consumed in buildings for space and water heating and, to a lesser extent, for cooking”. These figures help to explain the interest in retrofitting existing buildings to improve their thermal efficiency. The process can be difficult and expensive, and a variety of approaches has been taken. In the work outlined below, the role of software will be given particular attention. Foda,   El-Hamalawi and Le Dréau (2020) describe “a computational analysis taking a French single family house as a case study” using dynamic thermal modelling to find the optimum balance between annual energy saving and the cost of standardised retrofit measures available on the French market. The house had four occupants; was detached and typical of those built before 1974...

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...