Energy models are a great short-hand way to combine different methods from different disciplines to address the complexity of the energy system. Over the last decade, the legislation of long-term decarbonisation targets (to net zero emissions by 2050) has substantially boosted the need for modelling. Hence, energy models provide the underpinning evidence to support decision makers across policy, industry and civil society.
Decision-makers need to understand what is in any given model, how it deals with space and time, its inputs and outputs and external drivers. A key part of enabling this understanding is the transparency of energy models, so both technical and senior decision makers can understand a model, have confidence in its outputs, recognise its limitations and appropriately apply its insights to specific questions.
This policy brief (#4) completes the findings from the first iteration of the UKERC survey of UK energy models. It focuses on how energy models provide the underpinning evidence to support decision makers across policy, industry and civil society to help understand strategies and trade-offs in the energy transition.
It looks specifically at model inputs and outputs, the diversity of policy options that models aim to address, their application to policy issues, their use to support key policy and industrial decisions, the frequency of application, model ‘customers’, and academic outputs.
The first brief explored the UK energy modelling landscape, the second brief looked at the strengths and weaknesses of UK energy models and the third brief considered the construction, maintenance and transparency of energy models. This policy brief therefore completes the findings from this first iteration of the UKERC survey of UK models.