Community Energy Literature Review

In July 2022 the BBC’s business editor outlined plans for the biggest upgrade of the UK’s electricity network in sixty years (Jack, 2022). The expansion would allow an increase in the number of onshore and offshore wind turbines from 11,000, producing “nearly a quarter of the UK's electricity”, to a 2030 total which the National Grid electricity system operator believed would “deliver 50GW of offshore wind power … a third of the UK's electricity demand”. The £54bn project was not without opposition, for example to the building of a 110-mile line of 50m high pylons across East Anglian countryside. In May 2023 National Grid issued a press release setting out its case for the reforms needed to drive the energy transition, the “priority actions to ensure the networks can play their full role in achieving net zero” ( National Grid, 2023a). The five priorities are reform of the planning system, centred around a strategic clean energy vision; ensuring that the regulatory and governa...

    O’Malley et al. (2016) proposed the definition that “Energy Systems Integration (ESI) is the process of coordinating the operation and planning of energy systems across multiple pathways and/or geographical scales to deliver reliable, cost effective energy services with minimal impact on the environment.” The vectors which transfer energy from its source to where it is needed, usually at a distance and often at a later time, include electricity, fuels such as oil and gas, and heat-exchanging materials such as the fluids in a central heating system.   O’Malley et al. stress the interaction between the different energy vectors, and with transport, water and communications systems. They note that every energy system is different, that the people involved in such systems have different motivations, incentives, and information, and that “there may be no coordination across these domains to determine the best option for all actors involved.” The authors identify three...

A publication by the Energy Saving Trust, The heat is on : phase 2 , provides a useful introduction to heat pumps [1]. Its focus is on the performance of heat pumps installed in UK homes during the years 2010 and 2013, both air-source and ground-source types. An earlier trial (phase 1) demonstrated poor performance in some installations, and remedial action was taken prior to phase 2. Several measures of heat pump efficiency - Seasonal Performance Factors - are discussed. For the phase 2 trials the metric SPFh4 was chosen; the calculation of this SPF includes “the electricity supplied to the heat pump, all fans or pumps and electricity delivered to any incorporated auxiliary or immersion heater”. 38 heat pumps were used in phase 2, with average SPFh4 figures of 2.45 for air- source heat pumps and 2.82 for ground-source heat pumps. However, the performance range was wide, with SPFh4 values from 2.0 to 3.6 for ASHPs, and 1.6 to 3.8 for GSHPs. Consequently several of the sites...

Green Finance, the Export Tariff, and Reform of Power System Governance In May, the Commons Environmental Audit Committee said that falling investment in renewable energy projects over the last two years threatens Britain’s ability to meet its legally binding carbon targets. The 6 th report of the Commons Select Committee on Environmental Audit, published 16 May 2018, is entitled “Green finance: mobilising investment in clean energy and sustainable development”. In its summary, it notes that despite achievements in some areas “there are worrying signs that investment may have stalled in the last two years,” threatening the UK’s ability to meet its fourth (2023–2027) and fifth (2028–2032) carbon budgets … “Recent figures show that clean energy investment has fallen dramatically since 2015. In cash terms it fell by 10% in 2016 and by a further 56% in 2017. Annual clean energy investment in the UK is now the lowest it has been since 2008 and the rate at which we are installi...

The abstract book from the Fourth Energy and Society Conference ‘Energy transitions in a divided world’ held on 3 – 5 September 2018, at the University of Exeter, UK, can now be downloaded from https://geography.exeter.ac.uk/energyandsociety/conferenceprogramme/ along with the conference programme.

A workshop at the recent Energy and Society Conference at Exeter University was entitled “Beyond Academia”, and one of its themes was the problem of communication with policy makers. Many of the participants were researchers, and there was a concern that research findings felt to be relevant to the shaping of policy were in practice ignored. Since the issue of policy was also a factor in the post of 11 Sept. on Ofgem’s consultation, some papers on policy will be referred to here. The British Ecological Society (BES), offers three short papers on policy, available at https://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/policy/reports-publications/policy-briefing/ “An Introduction to Policy” (2017), BES, provides an overview of the UK political system, policies and their origins, primary and secondary legislation, and offers a case study.   “How does science inform the UK Parliament?” (2017), BES, describes the structure of the UK parliament, and how science can inform its work...

A response to Ofgem’s Network Access Consultation of July 2018 Ofgem published in July a paper on reform of access to the UK electricity network, and charging for its use (1). (Earlier posts: 27th July and 6th August).The paper called for detailed responses to a list of questions. The following is part of a submission addressing more generally the issues involved. It begins with comments from two members of the Regen organisation, Poppy Maltby and Merlin Hyman: ‘Poppy Maltby said that “A key limitation of Ofgem’s approach is that it focuses just on efficient use of the network. There is no objective in this work around decarbonisation and clean growth...” (2). Merlin Hyman wrote that “Ofgem’s focus is on efficient use of the network to minimise customer bills. Sensible enough in itself but rather a narrow goal.” (3). The tension between the goal of decarbonisation and that of protecting vulnerable consumers is the focus of this paper, which takes the viewpoint of community en...