In 2022 UKRI commissioned a mid-term review to assess whether UKERC was on track to achieve its core objectives. The evidence sources drawn upon for this were:
UKERC was judged to be performing well against all criteria, and particularly highly scored for research excellence, interdisciplinary, engagement and impact.
The review was structured around assessment criteria developed from the core objectives set by UKRI at the outset of commissioning UKERC Phase 4. The criteria are listed below.
1. Research themes: Is UKERC delivering World Class Research in Whole Energy Systems?
2. Interdisciplinarity: Is UKERC supporting the correct balance of interdisciplinary activity through a coherent programme of research that covers the full breadth of the topic?
3. Project Partnership and Engagement: Is the centre actively engaging with a wide range of relevant stakeholders to produce meaningful outputs?
4. Impact: Is UKERC on track to deliver research that has demonstrable impact on the UK energy landscape and beyond?
5. ED&I (Equality, Diversity & Inclusion): Is UKERC acting as a beacon for Equality Diversity and Inclusion?
6. Training: Is UKERC on track to deliver the leaders of tomorrow, building capacity through the training of highly skilled interdisciplinary researchers, developing early career networks, and succession planning?
The executive summary from the report is copied below.
This report comes at a time of crisis in the energy system unprecedented in the last 40 years. UKERC is responding to events with synthesis of evidence and analysis, in the media and through direct interaction with government, industry and NGOs. UKERC has the standing expertise that allows us to respond swiftly to events. In just three weeks in April, we analysed wholesale market price capture to inform a proposal to bring older renewables and nuclear stations under a long-term contract (CfD). We estimated this could save up to £300 per household. The idea was discussed across government and industry and now forms part of the Prime Minister’s plan to tackle the energy crisis. We are also contributing confidentially to high level conversations about security of gas supply.
UKERC’s high-level impact is built upon the longevity and continuity that has allowed us to develop profile, expertise, and reputation over four phases of funding. First established in 2004, UKERC has continuously changed and evolved, building on the interdisciplinary, whole systems, problem-focused approach embodied in the first phase of work. This report describes our research activities, impact, interdisciplinarity, flexibility, commitment to EDI and skills development, and provides ideas for future whole-systems research in the UK.
Phase 4 has seven interdisciplinary research themes, that span global issues to local scale energy system change. Our research has led to 95 journal articles and numerous working papers, consultation responses, blogs and media appearances. Our research on the geopolitics of transformation is now directly informing a conversation about gas system security that draws upon UKERC analysis going back to Phase 2. Our gas security research continues to attract significant media interest and engagement with the UK Parliament, BEIS, FCDO and the Cabinet Office.
Our theme on local and regional energy includes analysis of network regulation that has directly informed innovation funding and argues that network operators should be incentivised to demonstrate positive social value throughout business plans. A new multi-regional version of UK TIMES underpinned the Government’s response to Climate Change Committee advice on Carbon Budget 6, and UK Net Zero Strategy. Work on environment and landscapes is informing the development of the BEIS regional net zero hubs and assesses the environmental implications of global energy scenarios.
Our infrastructure theme has informed analysis of policy design for net zero and extensive engagement with BEIS in their Review of Electricity Market Arrangements. It underpins our ‘pot zero’ CfD recommendation, now adopted by government and industry. Our theme on energy and mobility provides a unique approach to the interface of energy system and transport. This work is closely interrelated with our theme on the decarbonisation of heat, which has published an open-source model and a publicly available database for half-hourly heat demand profiles across England and Wales. Research on the quantification of flexibility from the domestic heat sector across England and Wales is currently underway. A flexible fund project is generating critical evidence on how heat decarbonisation actions will affect lives and livelihoods across the UK.
Finally, our work on industrial decarbonisation is providing new insights on the impact of high gas prices, given the reliance on CCS and blue hydrogen in many industrial decarbonisation plans.
The Modelling Hub, Energy Data Centre (EDC), Public Engagement Observatory and Technology and Policy Assessment (TPA) capabilities play a central role in UKERC activity. The Modelling Hub aims to ensure that energy modelling can deliver the insights needed by policy and industrial decision makers, and that drive towards increasing levels of transparency. A ground-breaking survey across the landscape of UK energy models, collating 76 models, widely disseminated, and receiving plaudits from BEIS, the National Infrastructure Commission and others. The EDC provides a comprehensive showcase of UK energy research and is an invaluable tool for researchers and other stakeholders. EDC datasets have been accessed nearly 80,000 times in the three years of Phase 4. The Public Engagement Observatory is pioneering a new approach to the challenges of public engagement with energy and climate change. It has undertaken an unprecedented analysis of over 500 cases of public engagement, launched an online database and dedicated website, published on methodology and undertaken collaborative experiments with public and private sector in the UK and internationally. The TPA undertakes evidence reviews. Projects are ongoing on materials scarcity and heat pump cost reductions. A review of ‘green jobs’ highlights job creation from renewable energy and energy efficiency and is cited in the UK Government Green Jobs Taskforce and Environmental Audit Committee inquiry into green jobs.
UKERC has a strong track record in achieving impact. This has been consolidated in Phase 4, ensuring the delivery of research that has real and measurable impact on the UK energy landscape and beyond. We provide thirteen impact case studies. These are wide ranging and include high level impact on UK level policies to respond to the energy crisis, direct input to UK government COP26 campaign that helped secure the ‘phase down coal’ commitment, and ongoing work on gas security and electricity market design. Our impact stories also include matters as diverse as the biodiversity impacts of solar farms, supporting open data, EDI and network innovation funding. UKERC has made a significant contribution to the analytical base, through access to and development of models, and through their application to heat and industrial decarbonisation. Our impact is strongly supported by a proactive conventional and social media effort, with widespread coverage in print and broadcast as well as blogs, podcasts and Twitter. Testimonials from across public, private and voluntary sectors attest to the high regard UKERC is held by many stakeholders.
UKERC has been at the forefront of interdisciplinary research for 18 years. We encourage cross sector engagement, regularly reaching beyond academic institutions. We have also hardwired interdisciplinarity into the programme, which is complemented by mechanisms that enable collaboration. We have cross-cutting research themes on heat and industrial decarbonisation, along with the two integrating projects (Infrastructure Transformation: the Next 10 years; and a briefing paper series on Decarbonisation and Energy Security), which actively promote collaboration across disciplines and different parts of the centre. Interdisciplinarity is also implemented at the theme level, facilitating collaboration and promoting joint outputs through teams that span engineering, economics, social and natural sciences.
The last three years have seen unprecedented change, and as a result, many of our pre-defined research activities needed to adapt to these changing circumstances. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic academics undertook rapid analysis of the impact on demand and the transmission system, highlighting the electricity system operator’s lack of visibility and control of distributed resources, and their inability to reduce production at times of low demand. This was accompanied by multiple blogs and a review of how green jobs could form part of the Covid-19 recovery package, cited by the Green Jobs Task Force. The shifting geopolitical landscape has also had a significant impact on the relations between the UK and the EU and we have highlighted the opportunities and challenges that being outside of the EU creates for the UK. UKERC highlights the benefits of a pan-European approach to the energy crisis, involving the UK, EU and Norway.
We have successfully delivered our Flexible Fund, designed to be responsive, with one of the calls adapted to rapidly respond to the Covid-19 pandemic. Eleven projects have been commissioned, with the total value of £3M. Our integration work has also been refocused to ensure maximum relevance to the new context, bringing together security, infrastructure, and decarbonisation.
UKERC works hard to provide a focal point for whole-systems energy research, bringing together diverse groups from academia, public and private sectors and civil society, with our engagement taking a variety of forms. UKERC has a wide ranging and highly engaged Advisory Board and is represented on committees and boards across a wide range of organisations, including other academic consortia, Ofgem, the Climate Change Committee, Net Zero Buildings Council, ESC and NIC, bringing UKERC perspectives to a wide range of contexts.
Engagement with HMG takes place across many areas of work. It includes multiple BEIS units/teams as well as the joint BEIS/FCDO/Cabinet Office International Energy Analysis unit. We also engage with four units in DfT, with DEFRA, and have a long-standing close working relationship with the Climate Change Committee. We meet regularly with the National Audit Office, the National Infrastructure Commission and Ofgem.
We actively engage with the devolved governments and have a longstanding relationship with the Scottish Government, being recently approached for closer engagement as they developed their energy strategy. We also engage with the Welsh Government and have directly impacted policy and industrial strategy in South Wales through the Welsh Government funded FLEXIS project. We are developing our relationship with Northern Ireland, hosting a consultation at Ulster University which led to follow up activities on decarbonisation strategies, and we recently signed an MOU granting access to UKTM to assist with modelling, providing modelling advice to the Department for the Economy on the Northern Ireland Energy Strategy.
Interactions with industry are wide ranging, encompassing associations such as Energy UK, Renewables-UK and the Association for Decentralised Energy, and leading companies, some of whom have co-funded our work. We have strong engagement with academic partners, co-ordinating two cross consortia meetings and engaging through UKERC workshops, events and outputs. We also have long-standing links with NGOs and think-tanks, regularly participating in their activities, and joining stakeholder groups, with notable UKERC contributions to the Citizens Assemblies.
International engagement includes leading UK participation in the European Energy Research Alliance and steering that relationship through Brexit. We interact with the International Energy Agency, participate in UK-government led initiatives through country embassies and take part in international research initiatives.
We have made significant progress embedding Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI). This began with a new governance structure and the recruitment of an EDI Champion and an EDI & Impact Officer. We have published our EDI plan on the website, disseminating this along with an EDI focused podcast. We have developed an internal EDI plan and are successfully delivering against our goals. Baseline data is key to monitoring progress in this area, and we have trialled different methods to capture this. In October 2021 we also established an ECR Committee and developed activities such as an ECR breakfast on career paths, and a poster session at our recent conference.
Building on the success of Phase 3, the remit of the Whole Systems Networking Fund (WSNF) has been expanded. Through wide and varied WSNF consultation activities we have gained a deeper understanding of the interventions that are most impactful, helping us to refine our activities going forward. We appointed a diverse steering committee and developed a novel two-stage blind review process for the applications, with seven projects now being taken forward. Looking forward we will be hosting an inclusive writers’ retreat to assist career development and improve the diversity of academic publications. We are also embedding EDI within all our activities and publicly champion EDI on our website, social media and in our newsletter.
UKERC actively pursues opportunities to support capacity building within UK energy research and we are committed to supporting researchers at all stages of their career. Over the 18 years of UKERC funding more than 500 academics have been involved in the programme, and where there has been continuation of research areas between phases this has provided continuity of funding for many researchers, with at least 129 individuals spanning two or more phases of UKERC.
We work hard to integrate ECRs through the research programme, encouraging individuals to take part in the wider management of activities such as events and the EDI sub-committee, providing opportunities to develop skills around governance. Research areas have appointed mid-career deputy leaders, contributing to their career development and developing a pool of future leaders. We deliver and support one-off training activities such as that delivered around grant application submissions as part of the WSNF application process. Other activities include a UKERC / Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology fellowship, year in industry placements, leading the UK Times Expert User Group and delivering theme specific impact training.
We have made strong progress with delivering against our original objectives and will continue to deliver our research in a timely and responsive manner. Decarbonisation remains a high priority, even though energy policy is now placing more emphasis on price, affordability, and security of supply. Our research plays a key role in responding to high fossil fuel prices and heightened security concerns. It is important to be clear about what the evidence suggests, on topics such as timelines for renewable energy, energy efficiency or new fossil source, the need for market reform, or implications of high prices for households and industry.
We will deliver an integrating project focusing on infrastructural change in the next 10 years. Energy system transformation will require changes of technology and behaviour, but this is only possible if the underlying infrastructure also changes. The work includes new sources of flexibility, going beyond social acceptance, understanding environmental trade-offs, and critical paths and interdependencies. We have also launched a new series of high-level briefing papers on security and decarbonisation challenges, starting with a paper that will explore a UK Gas Security Strategy.
Looking forward, the need for whole system interdisciplinary research has never been greater. In an era where fuel prices appear to be high and volatile, affordability and economic impacts will interplay in complex ways with the energy transition. Fluctuation in the price of energy is having, and will continue to have, huge social and macroeconomic consequences. Preliminary thinking has identified four key challenges that future research could explore. These include issues around affordability, the geopolitics of energy security, providing energy system flexibility and delivering energy system transformation. Two cross-cutting issues could also be explored, one would consider emerging political discourse and increasing contestation around issues such as the UK’s net zero target and domestic fossil fuel production. The other would consider the impacts of climate change on the energy system and delivery of energy system change.
As the UK and other countries seek to rise to new challenges there can be little doubt that whole systems energy research needs to play a central role. UKERC has a very strong track record on which to build and is securing exceptional levels of impact and engagement. The nature of energy research is always changing, but problem focused, interdisciplinary evidence and insight is more important than ever.