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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]

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]

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 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 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]

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]