We explore the future of large-scale energy systems and particularly the transition to low-carbon economies. Our focus is on systems and includes economics, policy and environmental issues. We use a range of modelling tools with scales from global analyses to UK regions, and from annual to hourly analyses.
Our research is strongly interdisciplinary, combining engineering, economics, social science, and natural environmental modelling. While the key focus is energy challenges, our capabilities extend to links with the economy, society, and the environment. For example we have macroeconomic models, models of societal change, and land use models, and consider climate change costs in terms of mitigation, damage and adaptation costs, and co-benefits.
We have 14 academic staff and 10 PhD students working on a wide range of projects from a range of funders including EPSRC, ESRC, NERC and Horizon Europe. We are members of several national research centres including the UK Energy Research Centre, the UK CCS Research Centre, the Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre and EnergyREV.
We work closely with stakeholders and several use our models. For example, in the last year BEIS used the UK TIMES model for their Net Zero Strategy, and National Grid for their Future Energy Scenarios 2022.