On the 3rd and 4th of July wholeSEM hosted the conference in London with keynote speaker John Loughhead Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. The key themes of the conference were: 

  •  The past, retrospective analysis: a look back at over a decade of energy decarbonisation modelling, funded by RCUK and other bodies’ research investments, and impacting successive UK policy positions. 
  • The present, current analysis: a set of presentations on state-of-the-art on the implementation of the energy trilemma (decarbonisation, security, equity).
  •  The future, new approaches: innovative sessions including focus groups and discussion sessions on developing and communicating the new insights in terms of technology, society, infrastructures and resources needed by decision makers to achieve the energy systems transition challenge over the next decades.

Professor Neil Strachan, Deputy Director of UCL Energy Institute and Principal Investigator for wholeSEM said:

“Feedback from the 120 attendees – from academia, industry and government and coming from 20 different countries – highlighted how the wholeSEM annual conference has become the preeminent UK energy modelling conference.

The innovative quick-fire presentation session from all 18 PhD students, and the ‘modelling cafes’ where novel modelling approaches were developed, were both acclaimed as especial highlights