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Heating and cooling both make up a large part of the total energy demand in the UK; long-term seasonal thermal energy storage (STES) can address temporal imbalances between varying supply and demand of heat to buildings and processes. Underground thermal energy storage (UTES) can play a role in energy decarbonisation by storing waste heat from space cooling, refrigeration, data processing, industrial processes, harvested summer solar thermal energy or even heat generated by surplus renewable (solar or wind) electricity with fluctuating supply. This paper evaluates a range of UTES technologies in a UK context and addresses geological suitability, storage capacity, low-carbon heat sources, surface heat sources and demand. This review concludes that there is a significant potential for UTES in the UK for both aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES) and borehole thermal energy storage (BTES) systems, coinciding with surface heat sources and demand. Therefore, uptake in UTES technology will help achieve net-zero carbon neutral targets by 2050. There is also scope to utilise UTES technologies within existing subsurface infrastructure. There are 464 oil and gas wells which could be repurposed upon end of life using different UTES technologies. However, the potential for repurposing needs further evaluation; deep single well BTES systems will have a high surface area to volume ratio for storage, reducing the efficiency of such systems and the potential for ATES is limited by issues associated with contaminants. 23,000 abandoned mines underlay ∼25 % of the UKs population and could be utilised for minewater thermal energy storage (MTES). • Review of UTES technology suitability for the UK. • First reporting of details of the Bodyheat BTES system. • Storage capacities for a typical UK BTES system have been calculated. • UTES has a high potential in decarbonising heat in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The offshore wind industry is growing rapidly around the world. Many governments have set ambitious targets for growth to achieve their decarbonisation goals. As the industry grows it can become more challenging to build and operate wind farms safely. Wind farms are being constructed further from shore in tougher weather and sea conditions. In the UK, the Health and Safety Executive has raised concerns about safety performance. This paper aims to review the current state of health and safety in the offshore wind industry. It reviews the latest research, injury statistics and the state of legislation covering the sector. It also considers how the risk profile of the industry may change in coming years. The paper finds there is a need for more research specific to the safety challenges of offshore wind. Injury rate statistics show that performance is 3–4 times worse than comparable industries, and industry reports do not currently include large parts of the sector. Rapid growth and the implementation of new technologies will create additional challenges. Regulators should consider the implementation of industry specific safety legislation to manage the unique challenges of offshore wind. [Display omitted] • Injury rates are up to 4 times higher than the offshore oil and gas industry. • Risk exposure to workers is expected to increase due to growth and technology. • Safety legislation requires reform to address specific industry risks. • Innovations from other industries in safety management should be adopted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition towards a more decarbonised, resilient and distributed energy system requires local initiatives, such as Smart Local Energy Systems (SLES), which lead communities to gain self-sufficiency and become electricity islands. Although many SLES projects have been recently deployed, only a few of them have managed to be successful, mostly due to an initial knowledge gap in the SLES planning and deployment phases. This paper leverages the knowledge from the UK's largest SLES demonstrator in the Orkney Islands, named the Responsive FLEXibility (ReFLEX) project, to propose a framework that will help communities to successfully implement a SLES. First, this paper describes how the multi-services electrical SLES implemented in Orkney reduces the impact of the energy transition on the electrical infrastructure. We identify and discuss the main enablers and barriers to a successful SLES, based on a review of SLES projects in the UK. Second, to help future communities to implement SLES, we extend the Smart Grid Architecture Model (SGAM) into a comprehensive multi-vector Smart Local Energy Architecture Model (SLEAM) that includes all main energy services, namely power, heat and transport. This extended architecture model describes the main components and interaction layers that need to be addressed in a comprehensive SLES. Next, to inform successful deployment of SLES, an extensive list of key performance indicators for SLES is proposed and implemented for the ReFLEX project. Finally, we discuss lessons learnt from the ReFLEX project and we list required future technologies that enable communities, energy policy makers and regulatory bodies to best prepare for the energy transition. [Display omitted] • Framework that assists local communities to deploy smart local energy systems. • Extension of Smart Grid Architecture Model to Smart Local Energy Architecture Model. • Comprehensive list of smart local energy systems key performance indicators (KPI). • Lessons learnt from ReFLEX, one of the UK's largest local energy system demonstrators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing body of research into the potential security risks and trade-offs which may emerge over the long-term development of energy systems. As part of this body of research, this paper aims to develop and demonstrate a set of indicators for assessing the security of long-term national electricity scenarios. This paper extends the empirical work of existing frameworks by including reliability and cost parameters alongside a range of other important aspects of energy security such as diversity, trade and acceptability, and by using both qualitative and quantitative indicators without aggregation in order to identify trade-offs. This paper uses the indicators to assess the energy security implications of three plausible long-term scenarios for the UK electricity system. The results indicate that a major risk may be experienced by a lack of flexible, responsive supply capacity in low-carbon electricity pathways. Reducing overall energy demand is found to be the most beneficial policy for improving energy security in terms of generating benefits in multiple dimensions. The paper finds that energy security is often conceptualised as the avoidance of causes of insecurity (such as insecure fuel imports), but that an equally important aspect of security lies in maximising responses to insecurity, for example by increasing the flexibility and responsiveness of both supply and demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increased renewable electricity reduced electricity prices but the costs of consumer-funded support schemes were added to utility bills. Previous studies compared these two components to understand the impacts on consumers. This paper constructs a framework for the electricity sector and provides a new angle to examine the impacts of renewable support schemes on consumers and the sector, respectively. Any negative gain to consumers was offset by the positive gain received by renewable generators (and suppliers), leaving the sector unaffected. In contrast, the increase in renewable electricity brought positive gain to the sector as a whole through reduced fossil fuels imports and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. We examine the structural change in the generation mix from 2006 to 2020 in the UK and suggest that wind generation replaced coal-fired generation rather than gas-fired generation on the longer horizon. Therefore, using coal-related coefficients and a contribution share of 38.6% for renewable subsidies, we suggest that wind generation supported by the RO scheme brought positive net gain to the sector, exceeding £800 million per annum in 2018–19 and 2019–20. Therefore, the discrepancy in payoffs from the perspective of consumers and the sector imposed a difficult challenge for policymakers, as criticism would be raised if the analysis was done on consumers only. • Renewable support schemes brought net gain to the electricity sector. • The first type of net gain was avoided costs from fewer imports of fossil fuels. • The second type of net gain was avoided costs from reduced GHG emissions. • Wind replaced coal rather than gas in the generation mix in the long term. • The net gain to the electricity sector exceeded £800 million per annum between 2018 and 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the complexity and interconnection of different aspects involved in building evaluation, one of the most relevant, and challenging, research topics is the integration of different domain models (such as thermal comfort, indoor environmental quality and occupant comfort) to effectively describe and inform improvement strategies for the behaviour and performance of a building and building stock. Currently, this problem is unsolved with only one study attempting to integrate building energy simulation and life cycle assessments (separately, both practices are utilised to facilitate the design and management of buildings, traditionally consultancies offer building energy simulation services – most commonly for regulatory purposes – and more recently life cycle impact assessments), whilst no work has attempted this integration in a dynamic manner. This study addresses this gap by developing a dynamic, open building information modelling based co-simulation architecture. This architecture is the first to tightly couple and integrate EnergyPlus and Brightway2, in a way that does not rely upon heuristics or simplified tools. Furthermore, it is the first building energy simulation and life cycle assessment co-simulation to enable time-differentiated (dynamic) results and the first to be enabled only by open technologies. The architecture has been validated against two case-study non-domestic buildings located in the United Kingdom and Luxembourg, demonstrating its applicability to the construction and operational life cycle phases of buildings. The work presented in this paper has shown how a time-differentiated co-simulation approach across energy and lifecycle domains enables a more holistic analysis of whole buildings with greater accuracy and granularity. • There is a lack of studies co-simulating building energy simulation and life cycle assessment. • This study develops an open, building information modelling based co-simulation architecture. • The developed co-simulation architecture tightly couples whole building energy simulation and life cycle assessment models. • Co-simulation architecture has been validated against two non-domestic buildings, in the United Kingdom and Luxembourg. • The developed architecture enables time-differentiated (dynamic) life cycle assessment results. • Time-differentiated life cycle assessment results provide results at a finer level of granularity and accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Government and commercial forecasts indicate global ambitions for 2000 GW of installed offshore wind (OW) by 2050 to meet the targets of the Paris Agreement. Set against a current global installed capacity of 56 GW offshore wind, which has taken over 30 years to achieve, the challenge of installing 35 times that capacity in the coming 30 years is considerable. Aside from the issue of the necessary pace of OW installation, another challenge is scale: Where in the ocean could and should this new infrastructure be placed? This paper presents a spatial analysis approach for assessing the location of future offshore wind that collates and integrates, metocean, geoscience, ecological and anthropogenic features and intersects with engineering requirements. A new contribution to the field is made through calibration in relation to current ocean 'crowdedness', which leads to a suitability ranking of new sea regions. A case study is presented to illustrate the workflow and methodology of this approach based on the United Kingdom (UK)-Economic Exclusive Zone (EEZ). The UK has been selected as an exemplar due to its well-developed offshore wind sector, having the greatest installed capacity globally until the close of 2021, and as a region with ambitious and legislated offshore wind targets to meet net zero. The modelling and analysis quantify the need to eliminate the water depth barrier through floating OW technology, open up new sea regions and the associated port and grid infrastructure, as well as to assess the potential impact of increased utilisation of ocean space for OW. • 34-layer GIS model of UK geoscience, metocean, ecological & anthropogenic features. • Interactive map created to show suitable space for future offshore wind (OW). • Scenarios of OW in each sea region illustrated for various net zero future cases. • Need for co-location, floating OW and development of new sea regions quantified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently UK industrial and manufacturing sectors are facing dual challenges of contributing to national 80% reduction targets in CO 2 emissions by 2050 (compared to 1990 levels) and improving economic competitiveness in the face of low cost imports. Since energy consumption is the main source of CO 2 emissions and directly related to products being manufactured, improving energy efficiency in energy intensive sectors is key to achieve CO 2 targets. Energy consumption is unlikely to meet the targets unless energy efficiency opportunities and technologies are fully explored and timely changes are made to business models and policies This study explores potential energy efficiency improvements from three perspectives: system efficiency of steam networks, waste heat recovery technologies and bioenergy/waste utilisation. Two UK energy-intensive sectors, iron and steel, and food and drink, are selected for analysis and discussion. Potential business models for energy efficiency are also reviewed as there are now a variety of energy service companies who can support adoption of appropriate technologies. Furthermore, drivers and barriers to the adoption of energy efficiency technologies are considered in this paper revealing the factors affecting the diffusion of energy efficient and waste heat recovery technologies and their interactions and interdependencies to energy consumptions. Findings show that it is possible to achieve energy consumption reduction in excess of 15% from a technical point of view, however improving energy efficiency in UK industry has been hindered due to some inter-related technical, economic, regulatory and social barriers. The findings help to demonstrate the significant potential for energy efficiency improvement in two industrial sectors, as well as showing the specific types of technologies relevant for different sectoral processes. The range of business models show opportunities for implementation and for developing innovative business models, addressing barriers, and using enablers to accelerate the diffusion of energy efficiency technologies in UK industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, micro/mild hybridisation (MMH) is known as a feasible solution for powertrain development with high fuel efficiency, less energy use and emission and, especially, low cost and simple installation. This paper focuses on the challenges of MMH for construction machines and then, pays attention to its applicability to UK construction machinery. First, hybrid electric configurations are briefly reviewed; and technological challenges towards MMH in construction sector are clearly stated. Second, the current development of construction machinery in UK is analysed to point out the potential for MMH implementation. Thousands of machines manufactured in UK have been sampled for the further study. Third, a methodology for big data capturing, compression and mining is provided for a capable of managing and analysing effectively performances of various construction machine types. By using this method, 96% of data memory can be reduced to store the huge machine data without lacking the necessary information. Forth, an advanced decision tool is built using a fuzzy cognitive map based on the big data mining and knowledge from experts to enables users to define a target machine for MMH utilization. The numerical study with this tool on the sampled machines has been done and finally realized that one class of heavy excavators is the most suitable to apply MMH technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a quantitative-based evaluation of the environmental impact of a proposed wind farm is presented using the Rapid Impact Assessment Matrix (RIAM). The paper uses the revised Environmental Statement of the Grove Farm Wind Energy Project, which was rejected during the planning decision consent stage initially and upheld on appeal. The paper evaluates quantitatively the potential impact of an onshore wind farm at the construction and operation stages. Based on the RIAM evaluation conducted, the paper then goes on to apply a mathematical model to the results to determine the indicated potential level and nature of sustainability of the proposed wind farm. The results indicate that the Grove Farm project was deemed, as a whole, detrimental to the environment–human system, particularly in respect to impacts to visual amenity and cultural heritage. The application of the model to the RIAM indicated that in both the construction and operation stages, the project was considered as unsustainable. The results obtained raised legitimate questions as to the benefits of such projects as a major contributor to the UK׳s renewable and sustainable energy mix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electricity Market is structured to fund reliable electricity supply, meet the need of consumers, ensure the affordability of end-users, and support national economic development. In recent years, to meet challenging emission target set by Government, power system in the UK has a rapid increase of integration with various-scale Renewable Energy Sources (RESs) and Energy Storage Systems (ESSs), which pushes the electricity market reform to accommodate the changes, encourage renewable energy integration, adopt new technologies, stimulate consumers participation, and ensure the power system resilience. The paper reviews the history of UK electricity market evolution, driving factors of reform, and the trend of current electricity market reform. In history, the UK electricity wholesale market has experienced three significant reform stages, which are introducing the Electricity Pool of England & Wales (the Pool) in the 1980s, implementing the New Electricity Trading Arrangements (NETA) in the 2000s, and performing the Electricity Market Reform (EMR) in 2013. To address the new emerging challenges in decarbonising power generation, the paper explains and analyses on-going electricity market changes and the trend for future electricity market reform. • Comprehensive review of UK electricity market mechanism and its history of evolution. • Explanation of the major UK electricity market reforms and the rational for all the reforms. • Clarification of the importance of electricity market in encouraging increases of renewable energy integration. • Analysis the trend for the future electricity market evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The health and performance of students and teachers are influenced by the internal environment of school buildings such as noise levels, indoor temperature, air quality and light. Providing good internal environmental conditions with minimum energy for schools has long been a concern in school design guidelines around the world. The growing necessity to save energy in an uncertain future and to provide a good indoor environment in schools suggests that school designers should approach design more holistically in order to offer a better internal environment and to reduce the gap between design and performance. This paper investigates design issues in UK schools through case study analysis and a review of the literature. The main reasons for these design issues can be attributed to the lack of optimisation of different internal environment factors and their relation with energy consumption; the lack of understanding occupants’ response to the environment; the lack of building adaptability and the inappropriate application or use technology. This paper urges school designers to look at these factors holistically in order to overcome these problems in the future design of UK schools. This study also suggests an Environmental Circle to look at the interrelation between comfort factors through their sub factors in a holistic manner in order to prevent any conflict between. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Offshore wind is one of the most fascinating industries in the renewable energy sector and it is experiencing a remarkable growth. Offshore wind energy generation offers an opportunity in the race to decrease the dependence on fossil fuels, reduce green house emissions, increase energy security and create employment opportunities. UK has proven success in offshore wind and has been enjoying the economic benefits of offshore wind since over a decade. Offshore wind energy is an emergent renewable energy industry in the United States. The United States is coping up with the challenges and heading up fast to catch up with the industry. India is still in its infancy stage where the policy frameworks are framed by MNRE government and getting ready with the tools to enter into the offshore market. This paper researches the current situation and trend of offshore wind industries in UK and US, from aspects of policy, grid connections, operation and maintenance and cost reduction and analyses the proper direction and pathways of the industry to India. Therefore this paper highlights the scenario as to how these three countries UK, USA and India, respectively, are enabling offshore wind, to make a vital and sizeable contribution to the low carbon economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United Kingdom wind power is recognised as the main source of renewable energy to achieve the European Union 2020 renewable energy targets. Currently over 50% of renewable power is generated from onshore wind with a large number of offshore wind projects in development. Recently the government has re-iterated its commitment to offshore wind power and has announced that offshore wind subsidies are to increase from £135/MWh to £140/MWh until 2019. This paper provides a detailed overview of the offshore wind power industry in the United Kingdom in terms of market growth, policy development and offshore wind farm costs. The paper clearly shows that the United Kingdom is the world leader for installed offshore wind power capacity as pro-active policies and procedures have made it the most attractive location to develop offshore wind farm arrays. The key finding is that the United Kingdom has the potential to continue to lead the world in offshore wind power as it has over 48 GW of offshore wind power projects at different stages of operation and development. The growth of offshore wind power in the United Kingdom has seen offshore wind farm costs rise and level off at approximately £3 million/MW, which are higher than onshore wind costs at £1.5-2 million/MW. Considering the recent increase in offshore wind power subsidies and plans for 48 GW of offshore wind power could see more offshore wind power becoming increasingly financially competitive with onshore wind power. Therefore offshore wind power is likely to become a significant source of electricity in the United Kingdom beyond 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The residential sector accounts for approximately 27% and 17% of the world energy consumption and its CO 2 emission, respectively. Thus, it is necessary to develop measures to reduce the dioxide emissions in this sector to ensure the sustainable development of the urban environment. However, the majority of existing sustainable measures revolve around improving the thermal quality of the building's envelope with lesser focus on the social and behavioural aspects of energy consumption. For those reasons, our paper aims to address a completely new social aspect of energy sustainability which is household life-cycle transitions. More precisely, we will investigate the impact of UK households transitions from one household type to another (e.g. single to couple) on their energy consumption. To attain this, an official British database, which encompasses around 6000 households observed annually for over 10 years, was analysed using some statistical tests and procedures, including logistic regression. This enabled us to first determine the socioeconomic factors influencing the households’ evolutionary patterns. Subsequently, predict possible future transition patterns for a period of 10 years. Based on that, the impact of the predicted transitions on gas and electricity consumption was enquired. The analysis of main findings has suggested that households transition patterns have a significant impact on their gas and electricity consumption. However, this effect is weak and mostly positive in direction. Finally, we argue that incorporating the powerful concept of household life-cycle transition into urban energy planning will permit the forecasting of residential energy consumption in relation to different household transition patterns. This will in turn assist urban planners in their sustainable energy planning decision-making and enable them to develop appropriate measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, about one million households in the United Kingdom (UK) have installed solar photovoltaic (PV) panels with about two-thirds of them are using the panels for self-generating power. According to the UK Department of Energy & Climate Change, solar PV deployment in the UK (measured in megawatt) has grown considerably (from 95 MW in 2010 when the feed-in tariff was introduced to 11,429 MW in 2016). The popularity of the solar PV among the UK households made the government to introduce major changes to the scheme. Our paper focuses on the two major questions: Could it be that the system already favours richer consumers or certain types of network user who do not bear either the efficient or fair share of the total system distribution (and transmission) costs? Does the apportionment of charges between fixed, per kW peak and per kWh use of system charges need to be changed to be more cost reflective? We employ the data from the smart meters readings provided by the Customer-Led Network Revolution monitoring trial conducted with the 199 households in the Northern England that provides the data for the household electricity use and tariff behaviour between October 2012 and July 2014. Our analysis demonstrates that, similar to other studies conducted around the world, the increase in the solar PV resulted in a transfer of wealth and costs between customer groups. Due to their own production, UK solar PV consumers yield a lower share of the per kWh costs of the distribution system which leads to the increase of per unit charges as well as the changes in the distribution of their payment between different types of households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of EU incentives, the UK government have set ambitious environmental targets relating to energy consumption including a reduction of carbon emissions of 80% by 2050. The use of various technologies can help meet these targets as well as providing a secure energy source for the UK in the future. This research took the UK as a case study and investigated where reduction measures are most suited to reduce energy consumption. This paper presents a review on the current state-of-the-art on the domestic technology available, in particular solar energy, heat pumps, phase changing materials (PCMs) and micro combined heat and power (micro-CHP) systems, aiming at identifying research and development opportunities for energy saving in these fields. Furthermore, the financial as well as environmental aspects are assessed as these are the two key considerations of typical household. A typical UK house design, including the floor plan, is created through the use of computer aided design (CAD) software. The house design gives a payback period between 8.7 years at best and 11.6 years at worst. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No single solution currently exists to achieve the utopian desire of zero fossil fuel electricity generation. Until such time, it is evident that the energy mix will contain a large variation in stochastic and intermittent sources of renewable energy such as wind power. The increasing prominence of wind power in pursuit of legally binding European energy targets enables policy makers and conventional generating companies to plan for the unique challenges such a natural resource presents. This drive for wind has been highly beneficial in terms of security of energy supply and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, it has created an unusual ally in natural gas. This paper outlines the suitability and challenges faced by gas generating units in their utilisation as key assets for renewable energy integration and the transition to a low carbon future. The Single Electricity Market of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and the British Electricity Transmission Trading Agreement Market are the backdrop to this analysis. Both of these energy markets have a reliance on gas generation matching the proliferation of wind power. The unlikely and mostly ignored relationship between natural gas generation and wind power due to policy decisions and market forces is the necessity of gas to act as a bridging fuel. This review finds gas generation to be crucially important to the continued growth of renewable energy. Additionally, it is suggested that power market design should adequately reward the flexibility required to securely operate a power system with high penetrations of renewable energy, which in most cases is provided by gas generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Buildings consume large amounts of energy and resources and have a significant impact on environment. In 2010 buildings accounted for 32% of total global final energy use and 19% of energy-related GHG emissions. This energy use and related emissions may double or potentially even triple by mid-century. China is the world's largest energy consumer and CO 2 emitter. With the process of urbanization, China has been entering into a period of great prosperity for construction, about 1.6–2.0 billion m 2 buildings are constructed each year, which accounts for about 40% of the world's total new buildings. It is predicted that China’s building energy use and related emissions will continue to increase over the next 15 years. Therefore, promoting green building development has become an urgent issue in China. However, green building is a highly complicated system engineering, its promotion needs evaluation standards as technical support. Many countries had issued a series of green building evaluation standards since 1990. Currently, there are some representative green building assessment schemes. Code for Sustainable Homes (CSH) has been fully implemented as the national authoritative standard of the UK since 2010. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) developed by the USA, was revised and updated regularly with the latest version issued in 2013. China enacted its national evaluation standard for green building in 2006, and revised the standard in 2014. Based on introducing the latest evaluation standards for green buildings in China, Britain and United States, the paper compared these standards from 5 aspects including energy-saving, water-saving, material-saving, site selection and the outdoor and indoor environmental quality. The comparison mainly focuses on evaluation methods and evaluation indicators in the three standard systems. Besides, the characteristics of each standard system were summarized and some suggestions for improving China’s evaluation standard for green building were proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Offshore wind has been identified as one of the emerging sustainable energy sources in the United Kingdom. Offshore wind turbine support structures are mainly fabricated of welded tubular members, similar to structures used for oil and gas applications, and are exposed to highly dynamic, harsh marine environments. However, their structural details and design requirements are significantly different due to the magnitude and frequency of operational and environmental loadings acting on the support structures. These conditions would significantly affect their structural dynamic response characteristics due to the magnitude of the applied load. This may therefore have some significant effects on the crack growth behaviour and the extent to which corrosion can be associated with damage to the support structures. However, the magnitude of the applied load might depend on turbine size, water depth, soil conditions and type of support structures. It is therefore essential to design wind turbine support structures against prescribed limit states to ensure economical and safe operation. This paper presents a review of corrosion fatigue in offshore structures as regards the effects of seawater, environment and mechanical loading. Existing literature which documents results from previous campaigns is presented, including works referring to oil and gas structures, highlighting the significant difference in the aspects of loading and use of modern fabrication processes, with a view to illustrating the requirements for an update to the existing corrosion fatigue database that will suit offshore wind structures׳ design requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following literature review sets out the state-of-the-art research relating to smart building principles and smart energy systems in UK higher education university campuses. The paper begins by discussing the carbon impact of the sector and the concept of 'smart campuses' applied to the sector in the context of decarbonisation. Opportunities and challenges associated with integrating smart energy systems at the university campus from a policy and technical perspective are then discussed. This is followed by a review of building and campus-scale frameworks supporting a transition to smart energy campuses using the BPIE' Smart Buildings' framework. The paper finds that the complexity of achieving net-zero carbon emissions for new and existing higher education buildings and energy systems can be addressed with the adoption of 'smart building principles' and integrating 'smartness' into their energy systems. Several universities in the UK and worldwide are integrating smart services and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in their operations following the smart campus premise. At the building level, existing frameworks often create conceptual roadmaps for the smart building premise or propose technical implementation and assessment methods. At university campus scale, implementation typically comes through single-vector interventions, and only few examples exist that propose a multi-vector approach. Comparisons of the drivers and the decision-making process are made, with carbon and cost reduction being the most prominent from leveraging distributed energy generation. Therefore, this study identified the need for a comprehensive technical or policy framework to drive the uptake of the smart energy campus, aiming to bring together the holistic value of smart energy campuses. • Systematic literature review of smart energy systems at university campus-scale. • UK Policy and technical pathways to smart energy integration. • A critical review of the existing building and university campus-scale frameworks. • A holistic decision-making framework for the integration of multi-vector smart energy system at university campus scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK has enacted one of the most ambitious carbon reduction targets striving for net zero emissions by 2050. A major challenge to achieving this is decarbonizing heating demand with almost 25 m homes in need of retrofit. This paper explores a range of retrofit interventions to the English residential stock. These are deployed immediately in 2021 to investigate the maximum carbon reduction that could be achieved. The impact of these interventions on embodied and operational carbon emissions is estimated from 2021 to 2050. The resulting emissions are compared to estimated national carbon budgets, in order to ascertain, if, and with what combination of retrofit measures, the English housing stock can stay within carbon budgets. The results show that mass deployment of air source or ground source heat pumps can reliably achieve combined embodied and operational emissions within national carbon budgets by 2050. The careful selection of insulation materials is key in bringing down the embodied emissions, particularly to meet stricter carbon budgets. The identified scale and pace of deployment thus needed to stay within carbon budgets is likely to pose enormous practical challenges. To overcome these challenges, we argue for (a) urgently increasing both heat pump deployment, and renewable generation targets beyond existing pledges, (b) increasing social awareness of residential retrofit benefits, and (c) providing more attractive financing options to incentivise and facilitate retrofit uptake. • Exploration of retrofit measures to meet carbon budget for English housing stock. • Whole life carbon analysis including both embodied and operational carbon emissions. • Carbon payback for all measures except PV estimated to be within 5 years. • CCC Carbon budget only met with rapid deployment of air/ground source heat pumps. • Meeting Tyndall carbon budget also requires wall insulation using low carbon materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK electricity system is likely to face dramatic technical and institutional changes in the near future. Current UK energy policy focuses on the need for a clean, affordable and secure energy supply. Decentralisation of the electricity system is recognised as one means of achieving efficient and renewable energy provision, as well as addressing concerns over ageing electricity infrastructure and capacity constraints. In this paper we provide a critical literature review of the economics of increased penetration of distributed energy generation. We find that there exists a large volume of research considering the financial viability of individual distributed generation technologies (and we are necessarily selective in our review of these studies, given the wide variety of technologies that the definition of distributed generation encompasses). However, there are few studies that focus on the pure economics of individual or groups of distributed energy generators, and even fewer still based on the economy-wide aspects of distributed generation. In view of this gap in the literature, we provide suggestions for future research which are likely to be necessary in order adequately to inform public policy on distributed generation and its role in the future of UK energy supply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current editorial summarized some of the scientific works presented in the Sustainable Energy and Environmental Protection (SEEP) conference-held at the University of the West of Scotland, UK, 2018. The selected work was directly related to the scope of the Renewable, Sustainable Energy Reviews (RSER) journal. During the conference activities, experts from all around the world in the subjects of: renewable energy, climate change, optimization, and economics presented and discussed the progress made in renewable energy sources, as well as the new strategies for protecting the environment from the hazards connected with fossil fuel utilization. The methods presented in the conference focused on several directions: the development of efficient energy conversion systems with low/no environmental impacts; the suggested policies to widespread renewable energies; the restriction in the emission of greenhouse gases, and the recent progresses in CO 2 capture. This editorial focused on the renewable energy developments and their positive effect on the climate change, and briefly summarized the accepted manuscripts in this issue. • Effects of renewable energy on climate change. • Background on the International Conference on Sustainable Energy and Environmental Protection SEEP. • Summary of selected papers of SEEP 2018. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current editorial summarized some of the scientific works presented in the Sustainable Energy and Environmental Protection (SEEP) conference-held at the University of the West of Scotland, UK, 2018. The selected work was directly related to the scope of the Renewable, Sustainable Energy Reviews (RSER) journal. During the conference activities, experts from all around the world in the subjects of: renewable energy, climate change, optimization, and economics presented and discussed the progress made in renewable energy sources, as well as the new strategies for protecting the environment from the hazards connected with fossil fuel utilization. The methods presented in the conference focused on several directions: the development of efficient energy conversion systems with low/no environmental impacts; the suggested policies to widespread renewable energies; the restriction in the emission of greenhouse gases, and the recent progresses in CO 2 capture. This editorial focused on the renewable energy developments and their positive effect on the climate change, and briefly summarized the accepted manuscripts in this issue. • Effects of renewable energy on climate change. • Background on the International Conference on Sustainable Energy and Environmental Protection SEEP. • Summary of selected papers of SEEP 2018. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building retrofitting is a powerful approach to enhance building energy performance. The net-zero ambition urges the need to renovate building energy system in view of the life-cycle optimal, to address climate and environmental challenges. Existing retrofitting and optimisation solutions are generally based upon minimising operational energy or cost. However, although building retrofitting can reduce the energy use at the operating phase, additional materials would result in increased embodied energy. The objective of this paper is to devise a novel building retrofitting approach through the integration of life-cycle optimisation and supply-side management. It is an interactive two-set optimisation approach aimed at minimising overall life-cycle energy consumption through determining the optimal design configuration and operating plan of retrofitting energy devices. The essential retrofitting energy devices include passive retrofitting options (i.e., photovoltaic panel and solar thermal collector) and active retrofitting options (i.e., biomass boiler, ground source heat pump, heat storage, electricity storage, and cogeneration system). A modern 3-floor office building in Manchester, the United Kingdom, is adopted to assess the performance of the proposed refurbishment approach. The real-world situation is represented by historical electricity and gas consumption profiles, current building design information, historical weather profile, as well as life-cycle inventory information. The proposed retrofitting optimisation approach can help decision-makers select the optimal retrofitting solution so as to reduce the overall life-cycle energy consumption of office buildings. • Retrofitting via integrating life-cycle optimisation and supply-side management. • Interactive two-set optimisation approach at both design and operating stage. • Retrofitting considering a combination of passive and active retrofitting options. • Retrofitting considering interaction between heating and electricity supply. • Implemented on an existing three-floor office building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel take on the energy-water nexus; exploring the coupling of renewable generation sources with drinking water distribution and wastewater collection assets that can store and release energy in response to temporal changes in residential heat demand. The paper presents the development of a simulation tool that uniquely integrates energy storage in drinking water reservoirs, heat recovery from sewers with wind turbine(s), solar photovoltaic panel(s) and a non-renewable source. Simulations at the scale of a 1000 household community and hourly intervals were used to find the optimal energy generation mix that minimises the total annual carbon emissions (embedded and operational). Three different locations in the UK were studied. Results show that the integrated idealised system is able to satisfy the heat demand for up to 63% of the time across a year with no carbon emissions, and reduce the annual associated C O 2 by 60% when compared to all heat demand being satisfied by natural gas. This work shows that adopting such an interlinked system at a typical neighbourhood scale could help the UK meet its carbon emission obligations by substantially reducing the 18% of the UK's C O 2 emission (currently estimated to be) related to domestic heat use. • Integrating water assets with renewable energy sources can considerably reduce supply-demand imbalance. • An integrated water asset-renewable energy system can reduce the annual C O 2 emissions from domestic heating by almost 60%. • In the UK, such an integrated system can satisfy domestic heat demand with no carbon emissions for 63% of the year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wind generation increased dramatically in the UK over the last decade, partially contributed by the consumer-funded Renewable Obligation (RO) scheme introduced in 2002 as part of the government policy to support renewable energy. Despite its success in stimulating electricity generation from renewable sources, the RO scheme was closed in 2017 and succeeded by an alternative scheme, raising questions on the policy change. This paper makes the first attempt to evaluate the RO scheme by comparing the reduced spending on electricity and the costs of the scheme, focusing on wind generation. Using daily average hourly data from April 2009 to March 2021, our results from the Prais-Winsten estimation suggest that a marginal increase of 1 GW in hourly wind generation reduced the wholesale electricity price by £1.28/MWh. However, we show that the reduced spending on electricity resulted from the lower price was not enough to offset the costs of the RO scheme attributed to wind farms. Therefore, the RO scheme brought negative gain to consumers through increased wind generation, indicating that its closure was in consumers' best interest. • Wind generation reduced prices in the wholesale electricity market. • Reduced spending on electricity was less than cost of the RO scheme. • Negative gain to consumers in most financial years from 2009–10 to 2020-21. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compressed air energy storage (CAES) is an established and evolving technology for providing large-scale, long-term electricity storage that can aid electrical power systems achieve the goal of decarbonisation. CAES facilities often utilise large underground storage caverns to ensure high capacity systems. This results in the need of locations with suitable geological features to develop a CAES plant. This paper examines recent and ongoing large-scale CAES projects and presents candidate methods of storing high pressure air using underground features. An assessment of the overall potential for CAES in India is presented by examining its geological features and locations with the greatest potential for CAES plants are determined. This is combined with an analysis of the renewable electricity generation potential in India to identify candidate areas for renewable generation and CAES integrated systems. Up to 1.05% of Indian land area is deemed suitable for CAES plant development and if fully utilised would be sufficient to meet the energy storage needs of India, however, practically a very small fraction of the total suitable land that could be developed so other competing energy storage technologies should be considered. Conversely, the UK possesses a very good potential for CAES, enough to greatly exceed necessary energy storage, owing to the abundance of salt beds not present in India. For CAES to garner serious consideration in India, aquifer storage based CAES needs to be demonstrated. • A comparative assessment of the Indian and UK potential for CAES. • Methodology for linking CAES suitable regions and renewable electricity generation. • Comprehensive review of all major large-scale CAES projects. • Economic and geographic problems have led to the failure of many CAES projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cost-effectively decarbonising the power sector and household energy use using variable renewable energy will require that electricity consumption becomes much more flexible and responsive to constraints in supply and the distribution network. In recent years residential demand response (DR) has received increasing attention that has sought to answer, based on current evidence, questions about how much consumers will engage with DR. This paper critically reviews the evidence base for residential consumer engagement with DR and draws out several important limitations in it. We argue for a more action-oriented focus on developing practical strategies to enable and unlock greater loadshifting and consumer engagement with DR within a changing technology and regulatory context. A number of recommendations are put forward for accelerating UK consumer engagement with DR, presented under three broad strategies: (a) promote awareness of smart tariffs, smart meters and storage and automation behind-the-meter devices as mutually-supportive components within a common 'DR technology cluster'; (b) deliver targeted support for adoption of electric vehicles and other storage and automation technologies; (c) enable and support informed adoption of DR-enabling products and services through 'smarter' digital comparison tools (DCTs), data portability, and faster, simpler switching. The interdependency between components within this DR technology cluster delivers efficiency but also poses a risk that one delayed component (e.g., smart metering) will hold-up policy and industry support for other components. The urgency of decarbonisation goals makes it necessary to push forward as many of these elements as possible rather than the pace being set by the slowest. • Findings and limitations of the evidence base for residential DR are drawn out. • Smart meters, TOU and smart storage should be promoted as a DR 'technology cluster'. • Support EV adoption to drive greater engagement with smart meters and DR. • Enable adoption of DR products and services with smarter Digital Comparison Tools. • Support for each element of the DR technology cluster should be urgently pursued. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electricity distribution is moving towards active, more flexible, smarter and decentralized energy systems. This transition requires System Operators (SO) to dynamically monitor and control the power flow across the network. Demand Response (DR) can be considered as an alternative solution to the costly investment of upgrading conventional Distribution Networks (DN). Hence, the role of DR as a considerable potential of elastic demands in the Active Distribution Network Management (ADNM) is vital. The aim of this paper is to review the recent literature and pilot implementations towards residential DR activation and applications at the electricity distribution level. Background concepts, DR programmes and key participants in ADNM are explained. DR activation strategies for residential demand responsiveness at the network level are categorized and discussed together with the challenges and future directions of this technology. The most relevant DR innovation trials in Great Britain (GB) and their outcomes are also discussed. • Review of residential Demand Response for distribution network management. • Classification based on strategies, applications and network constraints. • Analysis of the most relevant innovation trials in Great Britain. • Discussion of barriers, challenges and future direction in the implementation of residential Demand Response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities across the globe recognise their role in climate mitigation and are acting to reduce carbon emissions. Knowing whether cities set ambitious climate and energy targets is critical for determining their contribution towards the global 1.5 °C target, partly because it helps to identify areas where further action is necessary. This paper presents a comparative analysis of the mitigation targets of 327 European cities, as declared in their local climate plans. The sample encompasses over 25% of the EU population and includes cities of all sizes across all Member States, plus the UK. The study analyses whether the type of plan, city size, membership of climate networks, and its regional location are associated with different levels of mitigation ambition. Results reveal that 78% of the cities have a GHG emissions reduction target. However, with an average target of 47%, European cities are not on track to reach the Paris Agreement: they need to roughly double their ambitions and efforts. Some cities are ambitious, e.g. 25% of our sample (81) aim to reach carbon neutrality, with the earliest target date being 2020.90% of these cities are members of the Climate Alliance and 75% of the Covenant of Mayors. City size is the strongest predictor for carbon neutrality, whilst climate network(s) membership, combining adaptation and mitigation into a single strategy, and local motivation also play a role. The methods, data, results and analysis of this study can serve as a reference and baseline for tracking climate mitigation ambitions across European and global cities. • 78% of cities have a mitigation plan with targets (avg. 47% GHG reduction). • Only 25% of cities strive for carbon neutrality, most by 2050, avg. By 2045. • 90% of cities striving for carbon neutrality are members of a climate network. • Ambition is driven by city size, climate networks, M-A combination, local motivation. • European cities must double their ambitions to meet the aims set by the Paris Agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the sector of waste-to-energy looking at the main processes and feedstock involved. Within this, incineration, gasification, pyrolysis, anaerobic digestion and hydrothermal liquefaction are named and discussed. Through the discussions and scrutiny, manure is highlighted as a significant source of ammonia, methane, and nitrogen oxides emission, estimated to be 40%, 22.5% and 28% respectively of the total UK's anthropogenic emissions. Manure, and indeed the pollution it poses, are shown to remain largely ignored. In waste to energy processing, manure is capable of providing biogas for a number of pathways including electricity generation. Anaerobic digestion is highlighted as a suitable process with the crucial capability of drastically reducing the pollution potential of manure and slurry compared to no processing, with up to 90% reduction in methane and 50% reduction in nitrogen oxide emissions. If the majority of the 90 million tonnes of manure and slurry in the UK were to be processed through biogas harvesting, this could have the potential of producing more than 1.615 TWh of electricity. As such, the economics and legislation surrounding the implementation of anaerobic digestion for manure and slurry are discussed. In the end, restraining factors that limit the implementation of anaerobic digesters on farms in the UK are discussed. These are found to be mainly capital costs, lack of grants, insufficiently high tariff systems, rather than low gas yields from manure and slurry. • Lack of manure treatment in the UK results in 28% of all ammonia emissions. • NO X emitted from agriculture accounts for 3% of the total NO X emissions in the UK. • Manure and slurry contribute about 50% of anthropogenic UK's methane emissions. • Drops in tariff rates result in fall in number of anaerobic digestion plants in UK. • AD could produce 1.615 TWh electricity, i.e. 0.45% of total UK's annual demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the transition towards a more sustainable, distributed energy model has continued to gather pace, the number of Smart Local Energy Systems (SLES) projects has increased. Ranging in age, size, location and complexity, these projects have faced a series of technical, social and economic challenges, with varying degrees of success. This paper presents the results of a systematic, state-of-the-art literature review with the aim of identifying the main technical barriers experienced by SLES in the UK. Originality is provided in the discussion of the key barrier areas identified during the review, which include those posed by multi-vector integration, grid connection, energy storage, smart technology and electric vehicles. The site-specific nature of SLES is identified as limiting the applicability of specific technical barriers, as is the need to view technical barriers within their respective social, economic and regulatory contexts. From the findings emerge three fundamental underlying technical challenges which face all SLES: diversity, uncertainty and integration. The findings also indicate that a more detailed understanding of site and context-specific barriers – and the relationships between them – is required in order to facilitate the mitigation or removal of technical barriers to the upscaling of SLES. • Discussion of technical barriers should acknowledge non-technical barriers. • Barriers to SLES upscaling are highly context-specific. • Technical challenges stem from uncertainty, diversity and integration. • Key barriers include grid connection, electric vehicles and smart technology. • Greater understanding of site/context-specific barriers is required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With more and more renewable energy sources (RES) going into power grids, the balancing of supply and demand during peak times will be a growing challenge due to the inherent intermittency and unpredictable nature of RES. Grid level batteries can store energy when there is excess generation from wind and solar and discharge it to meet variable peak demand that is traditionally supplied by combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plants. This paper assesses the potential of battery storage to replace CCGT in responding to variable peak demand for current and future energy scenarios (FES) in the UK from technical and environmental perspectives. Results from technical analysis show that batteries, assuming size is optimised for different supply and demand scenarios proposed by the National Grid, are able to supply 6.04%, 13.5% and 29.1% of the total variable peak demand in 2016, 2020 and 2035, respectively while CCGT plants supply the rest of the demand. Particularly, to phase out CCGT variable generation from the UK grid in 2035, electricity supply from wind and solar needs to increase by 1.33 times their predicted supply in National Grid's FES. The environmental implications of replacing CCGT by batteries are studied and compared through a simplified life cycle assessment (LCA). Results from LCA studies show that if batteries are used in place of CCGT, it can reduce up to 87% of greenhouse gas emissions and that is an estimated 1.98 MtCO 2 eq. for an optimal supply, 29.1%, of variable peak demand in 2035. • Grid-scale battery storage to offset CCGT variable generation in the UK is studied. • Battery is charged by renewables and discharged to the grid when demand is high. • Life cycle environmental impacts of CCGT and batteries are studied and compared. • Life cycle global warming potential of batteries is much less than the CCGTs. • Up to 1.98 MtCO 2 e can be saved if batteries supply 29.1% of CCGTs power to the grid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power systems require a wide range of ancillary services in order to function and renewables will be expected to provide such services in line with their increasing penetration. This paper focuses on the participation of wind energy in response and reserve markets. We compare the present situation in Great Britain (GB) and Spain, and make recommendations to support future development. Wind is already participating in a limited range of ancillary services in both countries: frequency response in GB and reserve services in Spain. We analyse the effects of market design, subsidy arrangements, and system-specific needs on participation of wind in these markets, and then make policy recommendations designed to enable increased participation from wind. Our recommendations include the use of short-term markets to enable the use of accurate wind power forecasts, capacity-based subsidy schemes to avoid distorting ancillary service markets, and facilitating the participation of aggregated (single and mixed technology) resources. Country-specific recommendations include revising the current settlement process in GB to remove the incentive to over-estimate short-term generation forecasts, and establishing a competitive frequency containment reserve market in Spain. These recommendations are supported by analysis of publicly available market data. • Subsidy free or capacity based subsidies will increase reserve provision from wind. • A market mechanism for frequency response should be considered in Spain. • Restoration reserve from wind in Spain has increased since regulatory changes in 2012. • Aggregated wind bids should be allowed to improve market access. • GB constraint payment mechanism should incentivise more accurate forecasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]