Global carbon emissions must decline rapidly to reduce the risk of dangerous climate change. Independent government advisers, the Committee on Climate Change, recently stated that the UK should reach net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050. This means that the UK's emissions of greenhouse gases should not exceed its ability to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Achieving this target will mean far-reaching changes to the economy, and to the way that people live in their homes, and travel. Yet so far, as the Committee notes, "To date, much of the success in reducing UK emissions has been invisible to the public... reaching net-zero emissions will require more involvement from people." A crucial challenge over the coming decade, then, will be to find ways to encourage and enable people to contribute to this shift to zero-carbon. This proposal looks at one crucial aspect of this shift. It examines how the energy system could be managed better, to achieve these climate change goals, and to make the most of the innovation in energy products and services. Such innovation includes the decentralisation of energy generation technologies, integration between heat, electricity and transport technologies, and increasing digitalisation and data-driven services. The project looks in particular at how to improve governance of the energy system. Governance is defined as the rules, regulations and institutions that govern the way the system is run. At the moment, in energy governance, individuals are understood primarily as 'consumers' of electricity, gas and transport fuel. Yet innovative technologies and business models give individuals the opportunity to shift away from a passive consumption role, to instead generate and store their own power, adjust how much electricity they take from the grid, and reduce their demand. This project examines how governance can be reshaped, to make the most of this innovation, and to support and build engagement for rapid carbon reduction. The project will learn from existing case studies of innovation, to develop a series of proposals, or 'Pathways', which describe how the future energy system could be governed. These Pathways will be discussed at a set of deliberative workshops. The workshops will allow representative groups of citizens to debate the future of the energy system together with businesses, and regulators and government organisations who manage the system. At the workshops, these three groups will discuss ways in which the energy system could be governed, and work together to propose new policies and approaches. Comparisons will also be made with other regions and countries, including Denmark, Sweden and the US states of California and New York. The evidence from the project will be used by project partners the Committee on Climate Change and the Energy Systems Catapult, as well as other organisations, to develop the advice that they give to government. Businesses will also be able to use the evidence to test and develop new business models. The research will develop guidelines for involving people in decisions about energy governance, based on the experience of the deliberative workshops. These guidelines will also inform the work of project partners and other organisations. Ultimately, the project aims to find ways to better engage citizens in rapid carbon reduction, in order to achieve the UK's energy and climate goals.

The potential for carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies to make a significant contribution to mitigating the risk of dangerous climate change has been recognised by a number of international bodies including the G8, International Energy Agency and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A range of commercial-scale demonstration projects are being proposed with the aim of CCS being available for widespread deployment from around 2020. A significant effort is required to train scientists and engineers (and others) to be able to design, construct and successfully operate these and future projects. It is also crucial to use lessons from these projects to inform CCS R&D, as well as drawing on insights from other fields that could be crucial for rapid development of CCS. Recognising these needs, the Research Councils have made a significant investment in UK CCS R&D capacity including through the E.On/EPSRC partnership and a programme of collaborative work with China.The UK Carbon Capture and Storage Community network (UKCCSC) has been established to support the UK academic community during a period (2009-2013) when significant changes in the CCS landscape are expected. The impacts of the Network will include better co-ordination within the UK CCS R&D community and more effective communication of accurate and impartial information, including key research results, to a wide range of stakeholders in a timely manner. The UKCCSC network will be the main mechanism to enable inter-communication between Research Council-funded projects on CCS. It will also contribute to maximising the efficiency of UK intellectual leverage, including within the international community. UKCCSC is deliberately not sponsored by any commercial entity so that it is able to maintain independence.UKCCSC aims to provide a 'one stop shop' for access to the UK CCS academic community. It intends to encourage collaborations that can support high quality work that will advance fundamental understanding of CCS technology, and the non-technical impacts of its use, and contribute to building world class capacity in this area. Any UK-based researcher is eligible to participate in UKCCSC core activities. These include two face-to-face meetings each year for academic researchers to share ongoing work, as well as updating key stakeholders. Between meetings, the UKCCSC website will provide relevant resources. A regular newsletter will also be circulated to UKCCSC members and registered stakeholders.Additional UKCCSC activities will support the development of a dynamic and stimulating environment for research and innovation on CCS in the UK. These include a programme of activities for early career researchers and specialist workshops or seminars organised in response to proposals from UKCCSC members. Support for exchange visits and other activities to develop strategic alliances within the UK or with international collaborators will also be available to UKCCSC members. In addition, it is expected that UKCCSC will help its membership to contribute to shaping future priorities for funding of CCS R&D in the UK.The UKCCSC secretariat will be responsible for running the network on a day-to-day basis. The full-time network manager supports and promotes academic CCS activities in the UK including by organising events. They are supported by a part-time early careers co-ordinator, webmaster and secretary. The secretariat is jointly hosted by Imperial College London and the University of Edinburgh and managed by Dr Jon Gibbins and Prof Stuart Haszeldine. A project advisory committee will be established to guide the development of UKCCSC as it responds to the rapidly evolving challenges and requirements for CCS R&D. An international reference user group, formed of invited members from representative organisations in other countries, will ensure that strong links are maintained between UK researchers and the international CCS community.

The project will provide the UK's first 'map' of network capacity and headroom and consider case studies in different parts of the UK in detail. It will also assess how heat and cooling demand might change in future using weather data. Based on all this the project will evaluate the nature of potential disruption in local communities created by heat system decarbonisation. It will engage with citizens to investigate their perceptions and expectations of heat system change. There are significant information gaps associated with the capacity of local energy distribution networks (gas, electricity and heat) to deliver energy for low carbon heating and cooling. Competing options include converting the gas grid to hydrogen, expanding electrification using heat pumps, and district heating. A key consideration is the nature of any constraints on the capacity of local networks, in particular the ability to deliver energy needed to meet peak demands, which can be far higher than average during extreme cold spells and perhaps in future during heat waves. Lack of both data and understanding of what disruption might be associated with heat system change are serious impediments to policy action on heat system decarbonisation. Research commissioned by the Committee on Climate Change analysis of a net zero target for 2050 concludes that utilisation of distribution network capacity is poorly understood. The project sets out to overcome this gap in information by evaluating what is known about distribution network condition based upon information reported by network companies and through interviews and surveys involving industry participants. It will compare electricity and gas networks and also consider district heating. Consumer acceptability of system change and local level disruption is also central to low carbon heat, yet it is similarly poorly understood and seldom linked to engineering detail at street or neighbourhood level. The project will use deliberative social science research to explore the expectations of citizens to the changes and disruption to local environments that might be associated with competing alternatives for delivering low carbon heating (and cooling) services to homes and businesses. Recent work on heat decarbonisation is strong with respect to assessment of end use technology options (i.e. what goes into the buildings) and on supply energy vectors (which energy source is utilised). However, it is weak on engineering, economic and social assessment of infrastructure needs and trade-offs - particularly for the 'last mile' or distribution network infrastructures that bring energy services to homes and businesses. This project is explicitly focused on this 'last mile' of infrastructure and combines engineering evaluation and constraint modelling with social science insights from public engagement with proposed heating solutions and their associated disruption(s), to assess the impacts of heat system change and what people think about them.

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This work has two principal aims: a) to develop a roadmap that will help the Research Councils and others to plan their research activities in ways that will contribute to the achievement of the UK's energy policy goals; and b) to conduct a programme of research that will assess how effectively different countries conduct their energy research and development (R&D) activities in different technology areas with a view to learning lessons for the more successful execution of policy. The roadmap will consist of a top-level document which will act as a bridge between higher level energy strategies and more specific R&D plans for individual technologies. The aim is to improve the coherence of energy policy on the one hand and energy research activities on the other. The top-level document will be supplemented by web-based roadmaps for individual technology areas such as carbon capture and storage or different forms of renewable energy. Demand-side technologies, for example for transport and buildings, will also be covered. Given the interplay between technology and human behaviour, especially on the demand side, social scientists as well as scientists and engineers will be involved. The roadmaps will address both technological needs and needs for training and capacity-building. The roadmaps will be produced through interviews with policymakers and R&D funders and through a mixture of facilitated technical workshops and strategic workshops engaging a wider range of stakeholders. The first task in the research programme is to map out "systems of innovation" for different energy technologies in different countries. We intend to cover a small number of EU countries, the US and China. The mapping will cover institutions and their roles, networks and research capacity. The task will be carried out through documentary analysis and interviews in the relevant countries. We will also look at systems of innovation internationally, for example through education and training, and the activities of multinational companies. The second task will be to develop and analyse measures for the effectiveness of R&D activities in different systems of innovation. Many countries intend to achieve fundamental transitions in their energy systems, for example by moving to low-carbon technologies. We will draw on a new branch of innovation theory, "transitions theory", to develop measures of effectiveness. Finally, we will review hypotheses and findings from the analysis of the effectiveness of R&D activities with experts and draw conclusions about how the success of energy R&D programmes and their contributions to energy policy can be improved.