Background
Heating buildings accounts for 25% of the UK’s energy demand and 15% of its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Cost-effective GHG emission reductions are available for space heating via demand reduction and fabric energy efficiency, which reduce the residual heat demand that will have to be met by low-carbon heat sources.
High fabric energy efficiency is undoubtedly the best approach for new buildings: it maximises the time over which the measures can act, causes no disruption for occupants, and avoids the greater costs and disruption of future refurbishment. Ambitious improvements to fabric energy efficiency are challenging for many existing buildings, but should be considered wherever possible and affordable, because if major improvements are not made, the UK could be left with a residual heat demand that is too large to allow sufficient reductions in GHG emissions using available low-carbon heat sources. The UK would face an insurmountable back-log of retrofit projects, including to upgrade new buildings that have missed the opportunity to adopt leading practice from the start.
Show more
Conclusions & Recommendations
To address the current slow rate of improvements (the “uptake gap”) the UK must aim for leading practice in new buildings, and must accelerate the deployment of retrofit solutions for existing buildings.
Increasing the uptake of improvements is not enough: experience has shown that when improvements are carried out, results are disappointing due to a combination of unrealistic expectations of the impacts (the “prediction gap”) and an under-delivery in actual performance (the “performance gap”).
New measures are needed to address these three gaps for space heating: these must be adopted in a pragmatic manner, without pursuing spurious precision or allowing “the best to become the enemy of the good”. Deployment must continue for measures that are known to bring benefits, even if exact impacts are uncertain; and early stages of deployment should be treated as a “safe learning environment”.
For retrofit quality, the Bonfield Review was commissioned to consider customer advice and protection, the standards framework, and monitoring and enforcement. For new-build, all customers already pay the costs for stipulated energy performance, but only some receive the intended benefits: the sector does not necessarily need more energy regulation, but rather more effective regulation through better use of monitoring, testing and enforcement.
We recommend actions to provide ambition and certainty in regulations for the building industry, new approaches to increase the appeal of retrofit to leverage customer interest, research to improve understanding of heat use in buildings, and better quality control and enforcement to deliver performance in practice.
- To guide buildings’ energy policies and regulations to be commensurate with the UK’s Carbon Budgets, a cross-departmental group should be established with membership from DCLG, BEIS, and relevant organisations (e.g. National Infrastructure Commission), aided by the establishment of an expert advisory panel.
- To provide ambition and certainty for the building industry, DCLG should produce a regulatory trajectory for building energy regulations that reaches leading performance in fabric thermal efficiency, and should maintain this trajectory.
- To leverage customer action on energy efficiency, DCLG should improve its use of light-touch regulations: Display Energy Certificates (DECs) should be applied to all public buildings and promoted for private buildings; Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) should be promoted more effectively as an important part of purchase and rental decisions.
- To increase uptake of retrofit solutions, product manufacturers and installers should better promote retrofit options and should develop more appealing products, installation methods and “retrofit packages”, with support from heritage groups for older buildings and with engagement from government for the development and implementation of policies.
- To increase understanding of thermal performance in buildings, the Energy Systems Catapult (ESC) should expand its network for access to test facilities and expertise to include tests of thermal performance, and should maintain its buildings trials as a longitudinal study and control group for other studies.
- To improve thermal performance in practice, product manufacturers should take a greater role in training and quality control in installation, and the building inspection regime should improve its use of tests and enforcement (better regulation, not necessarily more regulation) including conducting truly random spot checks of energy performance.
Follow-up activities
The report includes a number of actions that can be taken in support of the recommendations, and we will work with relevant organisations to identify opportunities to advance these actions.
The ERP’s Low-carbon Heat event on 11th October 2016 presented the ERP’s reports on Heating Buildings and The Potential Role of Hydrogen in the UK Energy System, and will introduce the ERP’s new project on Low-carbon Heat. This project is building on conclusions about heating options from the Buildings and Hydrogen projects to understand implementation issues for customers and utilities, and implications for energy systems. The event included perspectives from guest speakers and opportunities for attendees to contribute views on the priorities for the Low-carbon Heat project.
Steering Group
Project Chair:
- John Miles, Arup / Cambridge University
Steering Group (please note that some members have since moved from these organisations):
- Ron Loveland, Welsh Government
- Simon Hancock, Atkins
- Rufus Ford, SSE
- Simon Hyams, ETI
- Ben Westland, Scottish Enterprise
- Hunter Danskin, DECC
- Ken Bromley, DCLG
- Jeff Hardy, Ofgem
- Ute Collier, CCC
Further Information
Please contact Dr Simon Cran-McGreehin from the ERP Analysis Team.
Meeting the 2050 targets means the UK energy system will need to transition to low-carbon heat. Changes will be needed to how we heat our homes, buildings and industry. Supplying natural gas or oil directly into homes will need to be replaced by a decarbonised gas or by electric heating or heat network.
But it is not a simple choice: each option has challenges that could limit their deployment. A combination of options is likely to be required; no one option may not dominate, as natural gas currently does. Demand reduction will be an essential part of a cost-effective transition.
The scale of the challenge should not be underestimated. The social aspects are as challenging as the technical. The capital investment means the cost of heating will rise during the transition.
Timing is crucial. Preparations need to begin now, to inform the long investment cycles over the next 30 years.
Several low-carbon heating options need to be pursued in parallel now. Early in 2020s, critical actions and decisions will need to be taken, by Government, to avoid closing-off options, undermining their potential, or increasing their costs.
- Determining the extent to which hydrogen could be used to decarbonise the gas system, is critical. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) will be essential.
- Government support for trials of key technologies is needed now.
- No and low-regrets options should be supported now.
- High efficiency standards for new-buildings need to be set and enforced.
- A robust retrofit energy efficiency programme for existing buildings.
Addressing the social aspects of the transition needs to be a priority and requires early engagement with the public, alongside the development and coordination of financial policies, incentives, regulations and business models.
- Engagement with the public will be crucial and needs to start now.
- A new narrative for heating and hot water, to recognise that costs will increase.
- Energy efficiency should be pursued to reduce the costs.
- Decide how to address the distributional impacts.
- Prioritise new financing mechanisms and market structures.
A long-term strategy to manage the transition, which engages with the public and coordinates the diverse range of parties, with a clear decision-making framework.
- Integrate decisions on heat with transport, industry and power generation.
- A heat delivery body to facilitate national, local and commercial decision making.
- Early engagement with the public will be crucial – as will a clear narrative
Project Events
The project’s report was launched at an event in October 2017. For more information, please contact Richard Heap.
A workshop on 18 July 2017 tested the analysis on the deployment potential and challenges of the various low-carbon heating options. Details of the workshop can be found here.
January 2017 ERP convened an industry workshop to explore the challenges of deploying heat pumps (see project outputs for a note of the meeting).
The low-carbon heat project was launched in October 2016 (more information is available on the event page).
Steering Group
- Carl Arntzen, Bosch Thermotechology (Steering Group Chair)
- Chris Jofeh, ARUP
- Steven Cowan, Atkins
- Olivia Absalom & Andy Davey, BEIS (observer)
- Joe Cosier & Simon Messenger, Energy Saving Trust
- Jeff Douglas, Energy Systems Catapult
- Sarah Deasley, Frontier Economics
- Mark Thompson, Innovate UK
- Janet Mather, National Grid, Gas SO
- Rufus Ford, SSE (seconded to BEIS)
- Kathleen Robertson, Scottish Government
- Keith MacLean, Independent / UKERC
- Ron Loveland, Welsh Government
- Amber Sharick, UKERC
Additional Sponsors
We would like to thank the following organisations for providing additional funding that allowed the project to run to completion. They also provided additional technical input and advice.
Bosch
Energy Saving Trust
Innovate UK
Cadent
Energy & Utilities Alliance EUA
BEIS
SGN
Institution of Gas Engineers & Managers IGEM
The International Emissions Abatement Project sought to assess the UK’s carbon abatement trajectory relative to those of Germany, Japan, US, China and India. The work analysed contextual energy related issues within a consistent framework of analysis, emission abatement trajectories and implementation strategies of these nations relative to modelled generation mixes to 2020.
From this, assessment of opportunities that other nations emissions trajectories may present to the UK from a technology transfer, collaboration and business value creation perspective have been made.
Background
In the ERP-DECC meeting of 30th November 2010, Greg Barker raised the concern that there was a perception the UK was lagging other countries in its ability to implement carbon abatement applications and technologies. Specifically, that the UK was focused on capital intensive supply side solutions whilst other countries, for example Germany, were addressing demand side issues negating the need for large scale capital expenditure. This resulted in the development of the International Emissions Abatement Opportunities project.
Show more
Key Insights
Key insights of the review include:
Abatement Trajectories for Respective Nations.
- All the nations in this review, with the possible exception of the US, will become increasingly energy insecure to 2020 and 2050. The deployment of renewable and nuclear power is seen as a way of addressing energy security concerns as well as fulfilling respective environmental agendas.
- The UK is pursuing similar abatement programmes to the other countries in this survey – switching from coal to gas, maintaining nuclear (except in Germany) and with regards to renewables generation, predominantly deploying wind, biomass and solar technologies.
- All nations both in the OECD and rapidly emerging economies have energy efficiency and demand side management (DSM) programmes to reduce capital build requirements although these vary widely in scale, potential and ambition.
Capital Intensity of UK Power Generation Capacity Development to 2020.
- Despite the energy efficiency and DSM programmes, all nations have highly capital intensive generation build programmes. In terms of net capacity build to 2020, as a function of present capacity, the UK’s projected increase (17%) is on a par with the US (12%) and Japan (10%) and substantially less than Germany (26%), China (91%) and India’s (123%) – though in absolute terms China’s addition of 840 GW is the largest outlay of generation capacity.
- In terms of value capture opportunities based on the deployment activity, the UK needs to consider how best to establish energy research and industrial policy frameworks to help grow, and capture value within international (low carbon) industrial value chains where the competitive advantage for process innovation will almost certainly lie in Asia.
Collaborative Opportunities based on National Deployment Rates and Patterns.
- Different opportunities will arise in different phases of abatement technology development, necessitating different types of collaboration. Based on national deployment agendas (TRL 9), this work has identified, at a high level, indicative areas that the UK would be in a position to collaborate and the type of collaboration, on a sectoral basis within this group of countries – this is detailed in section 4 of the report.
Follow-up activities
The review has fed into the following areas of government engagement:
- A policy note to government. A policy briefing summarising this work was sent to Greg Barker on 20th July 2011.
- Feeding into the Global Strategic Trends 5 (2014) publication on Energy Technology Development to 2045. The Futures Team, Development Concepts and Doctrine Centre, MOD Shrivenham requested input to sections on energy and transport technology for the Global Strategic Trends 5 publication based on the material in this review. The Global Strategic Trends 5 publication maps global macro-drivers upon which the MoD and other government departments base their strategic planning; the next publication makes forecasts to 2045.
- Feeding into the ERP International Engagement Project. The ERP International Engagement project seeks to improve the resolution of the collaborative component of this work by matching up UK capability to develop technologies, the relevance of the technologies to energy systems and the potential for business to exploit the technology to provide a comprehensive assessment of areas where the UK should engage with other nations for business value creation, technology transfer and/or collaboration. Material from this review will assist in that work.
Working Group
- Project Chair: Tom Delay – The Carbon Trust
- Richard Neale – Atkins
- Duncan McLaren – Friends of the Earth
Further information
IEA Energy Technology Perspectives
Grantham Institute for Climate Change
UNEP: The GAP Report
Background
The world’s energy systems are fundamentally inefficient – as little as 11% of primary energy may end up in useful product, such as materials, heat, light and motion. Industry has a key role, not only to improve its own use of energy, but also deliver more efficient products and materials. Industry is responsible for 18% of final energy demand in the UK and about 32% of its total greenhouse gas emissions. However, projections indicate that cutting carbon emissions from industry will be harder than in most other sectors leaving it as one of the biggest emitters in 2050.ERP undertook a study to understand the potential to improve the use of energy across industry.
Tackling industrial energy use has tended to focus on de-carbonising energy supplies and CCS, to reduce carbon emissions. This study focuses intentionally on energy efficiency, not carbon efficiency. Energy efficiency delivers both cost savings to industry and a reduction in carbon emissions. Many of the technologies are already available and could be implemented over the next 10-15 years, cost effectively.
Show more
Conclusions and Key Messages
Companies may appear to be economically rational, and hence that value adding actions to improve energy efficiency would already have been adopted; our study reveals that this is often not the case. Without energy efficiency measures industry will become increasingly dependent on a low carbon electricity infrastructure and on alternative carbon reduction measures such as biomass and CCS, which present uncertain costs and in the latter case reduce the efficient use of energy.
The key messages and recommendations emerging from the study are:
Improving energy efficiency is not only good for industry but also addressing climate change targets. Despite delivering emission reductions at low cost, energy efficiency projects are less tractable than other low-carbon options. Greater emphasis is needed on energy efficiency not only in industry but how it interacts with the wider energy system and economy. To deliver this requires:
- Levelling the playing field between low carbon energy supply and energy use by introducing a package of policy measures that incentivise energy efficiency projects. These should take account of the differing needs of industry sectors factoring in size and energy intensity.
- The UK working with manufacturing industries to reduce the risks of manufacturing off-shoring and increasing global emissions through carbon leakage.
- Encouraging companies to share and adopt best practice, through measures such as:
- Setting Board level targets
- Appointing a senior manager with accountability for energy efficiency
- Changing the hurdle rate of return for energy efficiency projects to fully account for the benefits from energy efficiency projects.
- Monitoring energy use to ensure benefits of energy efficiency projects are recognised.
- Further research is required to understand how energy moves through the entire system and where losses occur, particularly heat and energy embodied in materials.
The key messages from the study was published in November 2011, which emphasised the need for a greater focus on energy efficiency to deliver low cost carbon reductions.
Steering Group
This report has been prepared by Richard Heap in the ERP Analysis Team, with input from ERP members and their organisations.
Steering Group chair
Steering Group Members
- Graeme Sweeney – Shell
- Tony Iles – Atkins
- Ben Curnier – Carbon Trust
- Bob Sorrell – BP
- Sam Balch – DECC
The views are not the official point of view of any of these organisations or individuals and do not constitute government policy.
Further Information
Any queries please contact Richard Heap, ERP Analysis Team.
The Energy Research Partnership has published the ‘Bio-energy Technologies Review’ in two separate but related reports. The first report, targeted at senior level executives and policy makers, was released in June 2011. The second report was more technical and served as a compendium of evidence to validate the recommendations made in the first report was released in October 2011.
The review identifies the opportunities from, and addresses the challenges to, further development of bio-energy technologies by 2050. It makes recommendations about UK bio-energy in 3 areas: The management of the UK support for bio-energy, focus of UK research on bio-energy technologies and support for development and deployment of bio-energy.
Background
Recent assessments of the UK energy system to 2050 have shown that in order to attain 80% GHG emissions reductions, bioenergy will need to play a key role. There is substantial potential for the UK to develop a reliable, sustainable and economic domestic biomass to bioenergy value chain. However, there are uncertainties as to the role that bioenergy will play in the energy system and gaps in our understanding as to how to produce biomass and deploy bioenergy technologies at scale; these issues need to be addressed.
Show more
Conclusions and recommendations
Management of the UK support for bio-energy
- Substantial benefits would flow from a co-ordinated ongoing, integrated bio-energy strategy involving all government departments and executive agencies concerned with the sector.
- This should be facilitated by the Department of Energy and Climate Change which should be recognised as the department responsible for leading the development and implementation of the strategy.
- There should be clear identification of roles for respective government departments in the UK bio-energy value chain and increased specialist bio-energy capacity within each department.
Focus of UK research on bio-energy technologies
- There should be continued support for research in a number of existing areas that will underpin the successful development and deployment of bio-energy, such as plant science, applied agronomy and conversion technologies.
- Exploratory work in a number of new areas, should be subject to ongoing review, including:
- use of algae within a wider research remit of which a component should be for energy;
- bio-energy with CO2 capture and storage;
- the potential for liquid “drop-in” bio-fuels that could be substituted for conventional fuels; and
- investigation of the opportunities for development of large scale bio-refineries.
Support for development and deployment of bio-energy
- Better global information on land use, and understanding of how to optimise the use of available land to produce food, fibre and energy in a sustainable and cost-effective manner.
- More work should be done with other countries through collaborative research programmes, which would allow the UK to benefit from advances elsewhere.
- The development of extension services for the education of farmers on sustainable farming practices.
- Re-consider EU GMO policy with the need for public engagement.
Support along whole of the UK bio-energy supply chain to minimise financial risk (from farmer to end-user).
Follow-up activities
The ERP sought to follow up on the key recommendation that ‘There is an urgent need for of strategic oversight, policy alignment and coherence of the components involved in the UK bioenergy sector. Without this the UK risks missing the opportunity to optimise the contribution of bioenergy in the energy system for pathways to 2050.’
To this end, the ERP sponsor undertook meetings with Bernie Bulkin (ORED) and David MacKay (CSA to DECC) to further this and other recommendations in the ERP review, and Steering Group members also met with the Climate Change Committee (CCC). A discussion paper was also produced in response to the CCC Bio-energy Review released in December 2011.
Key outcome from engagement activity was the development of the cross-departmental working group on bioenergy.
Working Group
Project Sponsor – Dr Graeme Sweeney, Executive Vice President CO2, Shell International
Dr Rebecca Heaton – Shell International
Dr David Penfold – The Carbon Trust
Marcus Stewart – National Grid
Dr Robert Sorrell – BP
Charles Carey – Scottish and Southern Energy
Dr Susan Weatherstone – E.ON
Duncan Eggar – BBSRC
Thanks to the contributions of Professor Robert Lee (Shell International) and Steven Vallender (National Grid)
ERP regards CCS as an important technology and has worked to help accelerate its development. Much of the work was in 2009, but ERP continues to monitor progress. Details of the presentations and discussions by the ERP and other published work can be found below.
Background
Fossil fuels are a major part of the global energy mix and will remain so for many years to come. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies are being proposed as a means of reducing carbon emissions from a range of sources, including from coal and gas fired power stations and from industry. Tackling these emissions with CCS will significantly increase the prospect of tackling global climate change and is therefore a priority.
ERP’s work in this area aims to provide an overview of the development of CCS and provide input to inform decisions about demonstration projects. This includes identifying engineering gaps and strategies, such as clustering projects, but also putting UK activity in an international context, to identify UK advantage and opportunities for collaboration.
The ERP Plenary meeting discussed CCS at two of its meetings in 2009.
Industry members from ERP have also responded to government consultations. These include responses to:
- DECC consultation Framework for the Development of Clean Coal, Sept 2009
- BERR consultation Towards Carbon Capture and Storage, Sept 2008
Conclusions and Recommendations
The UK must not delay in delivering large scale demonstration projects if it is to benefit from the commercial opportunities that will be available and also to allow fossil fuels to contribute to a secure, low carbon energy system in the UK.
Public funding mechanisms to promote the development and demonstration of the various CCS technologies need to provide confidence to encourage investment in the early projects. Costs could be significantly reduced if the projects are clustered around a common CO2 pipeline network.
A number of demonstration projects are planned across the EU. These should be coordinated to ensure that these projects demonstrate a wide range of technologies as early as possible, so as to understand their costs and potential.
Project Working Group
Doosan Power Systems, Shell, Alstom, DECC, ERP Analysis Team
Recent activities
ERP continues to monitor progress and it is often considered within the context of other projects, such as the Industrial Energy Efficiency project and International Engagement.
Further Information
Please contact the ERP Analysis Team
