Do smart grids offer a new incentive for SME carbon reduction?

Collectively small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are significant energy users although many are unregulated by existing policies due to their low carbon emissions. Carbon reduction is often not a priority but smart grids may create a new opportunity. A smart grid will give electricity suppliers a picture of real-time energy flows and the opportunity for consumers to receive financial incentives for engaging in demand side management. As well as creating incentives for local carbon reduction, engaging SMEs with smart grids has potential for contributing to wider grid decarbonisation. Modelling of buildings, business activities and technology solutions is needed to identify opportunities for carbon reduction. The diversity of the SME sector complicates strategy development. SMEs are active in almost every business area and occupy the full range of property types. This paper reviews previous modelling work, exposing valuable data on floor space and energy consumption associated with different business activities. Limitations are seen with the age of this data and an inability to distinguish SME energy use. By modelling SME energy use, electrical loads are identified which could be shifted on demand, in a smart network. Initial analysis of consumption, not constrained by existing policies, identifies heating and cooling in retail and commercial offices as having potential for demand response. Hot water in hotel and catering and retail sectors may also be significant because of the energy storage potential. Areas to consider for energy efficiency schemes are also indicated

Impact of Emerging Interaction Techniques on Energy Use in the UK Social Housing

End use energy efficiency and fuel poverty is one of the major issues in the UK social housing sector. It is estimated that about 10% of English households live in fuel poverty. During 2015 UK greenhouse gas emission final figures show that the net CO2 emission was reduced by 4.1% between 2014 and 2015. This shows that the UK is on course to attain its second carbon budget with annual 2013–2015 emissions that are each below the estimated level for the period. However, the housing sector lags with a 4% increase in emissions over the same period. More work needs to be done in this sector. Householders can adopt more efficient energy use approaches and make better lifestyle choices to save money and have a safer environment. This research addresses government priorities to reduce energy demand, meet CO2 reduction targets, and reduce domestic reliance on fossil fuels, offering protection from price risks and fuel poverty as well as providing more affordable and comfortable domestic environments. The proposed research paper deals with novel interaction methods on energy use in social housing and how the aforesaid issues can be reflected on. A detailed background study on existing interaction methods and ongoing development of a serious game trialled in 19 households has been carried out. It has been noted that displaying real-time utility use and indoor environmental conditions to householders increased awareness and impacted how energy is being consumed. Furthermore, the proposed paper will investigate end use energy profile pattern changes due to novel interaction methods

State enrolment and energy-carbon transitions: syndromic experimentation and atomisation in England

This article analyses how national governments seek to enrol different subjects and objects in energy-carbon restructuring. It takes analysis beyond consideration of particular subjectivities and governmentalities to consider an expanded range of objects and subjects of governing at a distance. Developing an analytical model of ‘modes of enrolment’ focusing on power modalities, forms of policy integration and policy targets, the article explores five broad modes of enrolment employed in England. The article shows how policy across all modes of enrolment in England has increasingly tended towards disordered, syndromic experimentation and government by-project rather than any systematic programme of government

UK bioenergy innovation priorities: Making expectations credible in state-industry arenas

AbstractThe UK government has promoted bioenergy for several policy aims. Future expectations for bioenergy innovation encompass various pathways and their potential benefits. Some pathways have been relatively favoured by specific state-industry arrangements, which serve as ‘arenas of expectations’. Through these arrangements, some expectations have been made more credible, thus justifying and directing resource allocation. Conversely, to incentivise private-sector investment, government has sought credibility for its commitment to bioenergy innovation. These dual efforts illustrate the reciprocal character of promise-requirement cycles, whereby promises are turned into requirements for state sponsors as well as for innovators.Collective expectations have been shaped by close exchanges between state bodies, industry and experts. As promoters build collective expectations, their credibility has been linked with UK economic and environmental aims. When encountering technical difficulties or delays in earlier expectations, pathways and their benefits have been broadened, especially through new arenas—as grounds to allocate considerable state investment. Thus the concept ‘arenas of expectations’ helps to explain how some pathways gain favour as innovation priorities

Energy transitions and uncertainty: creating low carbon investment opportunities in the UK electricity sector

This paper examines how actors in the UK electricity sector are attempting to deliver investment in low carbon generation. Low carbon technologies, because of their relative immaturity, capital intensity and low operational costs, do not readily fit with existing electricity markets and investment templates which were designed for fossil fuel based energy. We analyse key electricity market and infrastructure policies in the UK and highlight how these are aimed at making low carbon technologies ‘investable’ by reducing uncertainty, managing investment risks and repositioning actors within the electricity socio-technical ‘regime’. We argue that our study can inform contemporary debates on the politics and governance of sustainability transitions by empirically investigating the agency of incumbent regime actors in the face of uncertainty and by offering critical insights on the role of markets and finance in shaping socio-technical change

Exploring the financial and investment implications of the Paris Agreement

A global energy transition is underway. Limiting warming to 2°C (or less), as envisaged in the Paris Agreement, will require a major diversion of scheduled investments in the fossil-fuel industry and other high-carbon capital infrastructure towards renewables, energy efficiency, and other low or negative carbon technologies. The article explores the scale of climate finance and investment needs embodied in the Paris Agreement. It reveals that there is little clarity in the numbers from the plethora of sources (official and otherwise) on climate finance and investment. The article compares the US$100 billion target in the Paris Agreement with a range of other financial metrics, such as investment, incremental investment, energy expenditure, energy subsidies, and welfare losses. While the relatively narrowly defined climate finance included in the US$100 billion figure is a fraction of the broader finance and investment needs of climate-change mitigation and adaptation, it is significant when compared to some estimates of the net incremental costs of decarbonization that take into account capital and operating cost savings. However, even if the annual US$100 billion materializes, achieving the much larger implied shifts in investment will require the enactment of long-term internationally coordinated policies, far more stringent than have yet been introduced.</i

Combining energy efficiency measure approaches and occupancy patterns in building modelling in the UK residential context

The UK faces a significant retrofit challenge, especially with its housing stock of old, hard-to-treat solid walled dwellings. In this work, we investigate the delivery of heated thermal comfort with a lower energy demand through four types of energy efficiency interventions: passive system, conversion device, method of service control, and level of service demanded. These are compared for three distinct household occupancy patterns, corresponding to a working family, a working couple and a daytime-present couple. Energy efficiency measures are considered singly and in combination, to study whether multiple lower cost measures can achieve comparable savings to higher cost individual measures. Scenarios are simulated using engineering building modelling software TRNSYS with data taken from literature. Upgraded insulation of wall and roof resulted in highest savings in all occupancy scenarios, but comparable savings were calculated for reduced internal temperature and partial spatial heating in scenarios in which the house is not at maximum capacity. Zonal heating control is expected to achieve greatest savings for the working couple who had a flexible occupancy pattern. The results from this modelling work show the extent to which energy consumption depends on the appropriate matching between energy efficiency measures and occupant type

Mapping household direct energy consumption in the United Kingdom to provide a new perspective on energy justice

Targets for reductions in carbon emissions and energy use are often framed solely in terms of percentage reductions. However, the amount of energy used by households varies greatly, with some using considerably more than others and, therefore, potentially being able to make a bigger contribution towards overall reductions. Using two recently released UK datasets based on combined readings from over 70 million domestic energy meters and vehicle odometers, we present exploratory analyses of patterns of direct household energy usage. Whilst much energy justice work has previously focussed on energy vulnerability, mainly in low consumers, our findings suggest that a minority of areas appear to be placing much greater strain on energy networks and environmental systems than they need. Households in these areas are not only the most likely to be able to afford energy efficiency measures to reduce their impacts, but are also found to have other capabilities that would allow them to take action to reduce consumption (such as higher levels of income, education and particular configurations of housing type and tenure). We argue that these areas should therefore be a higher priority in the targeting of policy interventions