Whole Systems Energy Modelling Consortium

wholeSEM bound together the UK modelling community through international annual energy conferences, specialist events and a bilateral Fellowship programme. wholeSEM's policy impact can be seen in the CCC’s 5th carbon budget, and BEIS’ Clean Growth Strategy. And it broke new ground on interdisciplinary energy modelling, addressing the conceptual and practical difficulties of truly cross-disciplinary analysis and insights. As Principal Investigator of wholeSEM, it has been my privilege to work with our four partner universities and with our Advisory Board over the last 4 years.” – Professor Neil Strachan, Principal Investigator, 2018

Aims

The key aims of the wholeSEM consortium were to:

build and link energy models to provide a fundamental underpinning role for the UK’s national strategic energy modelling activity
provide continuity of funding to develop new models, retain human capacity and link modelling frameworks in innovative ways
employ extensive integration mechanisms to link and apply interdisciplinary models to key energy policy problems, with substantive engagement with a range of stakeholders.

Research

wholeSEM prioritised key modelling areas of high relevance to energy systems in its research. These research questions were:

How does energy demand co-evolve with changes in practice, supply, and policy?
How will the endogenous, uncertain, and path dependent process of technological change impact future energy systems?
How can the energy supply-demand system be optimised over multiple energy vectors and infrastructures?
What are the major future physical and economic interactions and stresses between the UK energy system and the broader environment?

Impact

wholeSEM was able to provide a unique hub for the rapidly growing UK energy modelling user group and network of stakeholders through the following activities:

a high-profile Advisory Board – with key policy/industry representative and academic experts
an innovative bi-directional Fellowship Programme for UK academic, policy, industrial and international experts
4 high-profile annual UK energy modelling conferences
technical workshops on key modelling issues
non-technical stakeholder workshops to inform the development of the consortium’s core modelling tools and define a clear set of use-cases and scenarios
collation and curation of energy modelling data sources
detailed and transparent documentation for all of the consortium’s new energy models
model access to ensure best use, accountability and two-way flows of information from/to model developers, users and critics
training in modelling techniques and software platforms
Master’s level course materials and interactions with relevant centres for doctoral training
responsive engagement to regulators, government officials and the energy industry
traditional methods of academic dissemination, including leading peer-reviewed journals and international conferences
interactive web-based information dissemination, including a website, wikis, visual communications and webinars to share information.

Publications

wholeSEM publications

2018

Skelton, A., Parroussos & Allwood, J., (submitted) Comparing energy and material efficiency rebound effects: an exploration of scenarios in the GEM-E3 macroeconomic model, submitted to Journal of Environmental Economics and Management
Jia, L., Aidt, T., Allwood, J., Low, H. & Skelton, A., (to be submitted) The limits of substitution towards low carbon emission inputs, to be submitted to Journal of Environmental Economics and Management
Hope, C., Roberts & Walker (Under review) Preparing UK households for a more active role in the transition to lower carbon energy. The Journal of Energy Research and Social Science

2017

2017 wholeSEM Annual Conference report
Allwood, J., Gutowski, T., Serrenho, A., Skelton, A. & Worrell, E. (2017) 'Industry 1.61803: the transition to an industry with reduced material demand fit for a low carbon future' Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 375, 2095
Roberts, T., Hope, A., & Skelton, A. (2017) 'Why on earth did I buy that? A study of regretted appliance purchases' Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 375, 2095
Konadu, D. D., Fenner, R. A., Richards, K. S., Allwood, J. M., Butler, D., Kilby, C., Hall, J. M., Mason, A., Gasparino, U., Colquhoun, K., Johnson, A., Davies, P. A., Byers, E., Ward, R., De Stercke, S., Bajón Fernández, Y., Riley. D., Darch, G., Street, R., Osborne, M., Spooner, S., Mukherjee, S., Armstrong, A. and Williams, R. (2017) 'UK water-energy nexus under climate change: Key issues and priorities' ISBN 978-0-903428-43-1.
Skelton, A. & Allwood, J. (2017) 'The carbon price: a toothless tool for material efficiency?' Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 375, 2095
Mourao, Z.S., Konadu, D., and Damoah, R. (2016, December) 'Assessment of environmental co-benefits of energy system decarbonisation – the case of UK air quality using Remote Sensing and Model simulations' In 2016 AGU Fall Meeting.
Rivotti, P., Karatayev, M., Sobral Mourão, Z., Shah, N., Clarke, M. and Konadu, D. D. (2017, April) 'Impact of future energy policy on water resources in Kazakhstan' In EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts (Vol. 19, p. 4163).
Konadu, D. & Mourao, Z.S. (2016, December) 'Assessment of the trade-offs and synergies between low-carbon power sector transition and land and water resources of the United Kingdom using the "ForeseerTM" approach' In 2016 AGU Fall Meeting.
Guivarch, C., Trutnevyte, E., Lempert, R. (2017) 'Scenario techniques for energy and environmental research: An overview of recent developments to broaden the capacity to deal with complexity and uncertainty' Environmental Modelling & Software, Volume 97, Pages 201-210.
Karatayev, M., Rivotti, P., Mourão, Z. S., Konadu, D. D., Shah, N., & Clarke, M. (2017).'The water-energy-food nexus in Kazakhstan: challenges and opportunities' Energy Procedia, 125, 63-70.
Konadu, D. D. & Fenner, R. (2017) 'Catchment level water resource constraints on UK policies for low-carbon energy system transition by 2030' Global Challenges. DOI: 10.1002/gch2.201700006
Rivotti, P., Karatayev, M., Sobral Mourão, Z., Shah, N., Clarke, M. and Konadu, D. D. 'Impact of future energy policy on water resources in Kazakhstan' Copernicus.
Spencer, T., Pierfederici R., Sartor O., Berghmans N., Samadi S., Fischedick M., Knoop K., Pye S., Criqui P., Mathy S., Capros P., Fragkos P., Bukowski M., Sniegocki A., Virdis M. R., Gaeta M., Pollier K., Cassisa C. (2017) 'Tracking sectoral progress in the deep decarbonisation of energy systems in Europe' Energy Policy, Volume 110, November 2017, Pages 509–517
Narasimhan, K., Gilbert, N., Hope, A. (2017) 'An Empirically Informed Practice-centric Approach to Model Demand Response in Households' CRESS, University of Surrey
Li, F. (2017) 'Actors behaving badly: Exploring the modelling of non-optimal behaviour in energy transitions' Energy Strategy Reviews, Volume 15, Pages 57–71
Li, F., Trutnevyte, E. (2017) 'Appraisal of cost-optimal and near-optimal pathways for the UK electricity sector transition to 2050' Applied Energy, Volume 189, Pages 89–109.
Pye, S., Li, F., Price, J., Fais, B.(2017) 'Achieving net-zero emissions through the reframing of UK national targets in the post-Paris Agreement era' Nature Energy, Volume 2, Article number 17024.
DeCarolisa, J., Daly, H., Dodds, P., Keppo, I., Li, F., McDowall, W., Pye, S., Strachan, N., Trutnevyte, E., Usher, W., Winning, M., Yeh, S., Zeyringer, M. (2017) 'Formalizing best practice for energy system optimization modelling' Applied Energy Volume 194, Pages 184–198.

2016

2016 wholeSEM Annual Conference report
Dr Birgit Fais, Dr Hannah Daly, Dr Marianne Zeyringer, Dr Ilkka Keppo, Dr Will Usher (2016) 'Impact of technology uncertainty on future low-carbon pathways in the UK' Energy Strategy Reviews, pp. 154-168
wholeSEM Cambridge Team (2016) UK land use and energy system interaction: Modelling energy systems How much bioenergy feedstock can by grown sustainably in the UK? © University of Cambridge. ISBN 978-0-903428-39-2
Pye, S. and Bataille, C. (2016). Improving deep decarbonisation modelling capacity for developed and developing country contexts. Climate Policy.
Pye, S., McGlade, C., Bataille, C., Anandarajah, G., Denis-Ryan, A., and Potashnikov, V. (2016). Exploring national decarbonization pathways and global energy trade flows: a multi-scale analysis. Climate Policy.
Skelton, A.C.H, Allwood J.M (2016) Questioning demand: A study of regretted purchases in Great Britain Ecological Economics, Volume 131, January 2017, Pages 499–509
Strachan, N. Fais, B and Daly, H (2016). 'Reinventing the energy modelling–policy interface.' Nature Energy 1(3): 1-3
Li, F. Pye, S and N. Strachan (2016) 'Regional winners and losers in future UK energy system transitions' Energy Strategy Reviews
Li, F. and N. Strachan (2016) 'Energy transitions modelling of climate targets under landscape and actor inertia' Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions
McKenna, R. Hofmann, L. Merkel, W. Fichtner, N. Strachan (2016) 'Analysing socioeconomic diversity and scaling effects on residential electricity load profiles in the context of low carbon technology uptake', Energy Policy, 97: 13–26
Scott, K., H. Daly, J. Barrett and N. Strachan (2016), 'National climate policy implications of mitigating embodied energy system emissions', Climatic Change, 136(2): 325-338
Fais B., N. Sabio and N. Strachan (2016), The critical role of the industrial sector in reaching long-term emission reduction, energy efficiency and renewable targets, Applied Energy, 162: 699–712
Narasimhan, K. Roberts, T. Gilbert, N. (2016) Using agent-based modelling to understand the spread of energy consuming social practices in households, DEMAND 2016 international conference
Narasimhan, K. Roberts, T. Gilbert, N. (2016) HOPES: A practice-centric model of domestic energy consumption, Social Simulation Conference 2016
Narasimhan, K. P., Roberts, T., Gilbert, N. (2016) 'An agent-based model to explore the short-term and long-term trajectories of domestic energy practices' Presented at wholeSEM conference.

2015

2015 wholeSEM Annual Conference report
Daly, H. E., Scott, K., Strachan, N., Barrett, J., 'Indirect CO2 Emission Implications of Energy System Pathways: Linking IO and TIMES Models for the UK' Environmental Science and Technology Volume 49, June 2015, pp 10701–10709
Konadu, D., Mourão, Z. S., Allwood, J. M., Richards, K. S., Kopec, G., McMahon, R., Fenner, R. (2015) 'Land use implications of future energy system trajectories—The case of the UK 2050 Carbon Plan' Energy Policy Volume 86, November 2015, Pages 328–337
Konadu, D., Sobral Mourão, Z., Allwood J. M.,, Richards, K. S., Kopec, G. M., McMahon, R. A., Fenner, R. A. 'Not all low-carbon energy pathways are environmentally “no-regrets” options' Global Environmental Change Volume 35, November 2015, Pages 379–390
Pye, S., et al. (2015) 'Pathways to deep decarbonization in the United Kingdom', SDSN - IDDRI.
Samsatli, S., Samsatli, N. J., Shah N., 'BVCM: A comprehensive and flexible toolkit for whole system biomass value chain analysis and optimisation – Mathematical formulation' Applied Energy Volume 147, Pages 131–160
Narasimhan K., Roberts T., Gilbert N., Xenitidou M. (2015) 'Using ABM to clarify and refine social practice theory, Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing' Springer International Publishing.
Strbac G., Aunedi M., Pudjianto D., Teng F., Djapic P., Druce R., Carmel A., Borkowski K. (2015) 'Value of Flexibility in a Decarbonised Grid and System Externalities of Low-Carbon Generation Technologies'. For the Committee on Climate Change.

2014

2014 wholeSEM Annual Conference report
Ahrweiler, P., Schilperoord, M., Pyka, A., Gilbert, N. Testing policy options for horizon 2020 with SKIN (2014) Understanding Complex Systems, pp. 155-183.
Akgul, O., Mac Dowell, N., Papageorgiou, L.G., Shah, N. A mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) supply chain optimisation framework for carbon negative electricity generation using biomass to energy with CCS (BECCS) in the UK (2014) International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, 28, pp. 189-202.
Balke, T., Gilbert, N. How do agents make decisions? A survey (2014) JASSS, 17 (4), p. 1.
Daly, H.E., Ramea, K., Chiodi, A., Yeh, S., Gargiulo, M., Gallachoir, B.O. Incorporating travel behaviour and travel time into TIMES energy system models (2014) Applied Energy, 135, pp. 429-439.
Dodds, P.E., Keppo, I., Strachan, N. Characterising the Evolution of Energy System Models Using Model Archaeology (2014) Environmental Modeling & Assessment, Article in Press.
Fais, B., Blesl, M., Fahl, U., Voß, A. Comparing different support schemes for renewable electricity in the scope of an energy systems analysis (2014) Applied Energy, 131, pp. 479-489.
Pudjianto, D., Aunedi, M., Djapic, P., Strbac, G. Whole-systems assessment of the value of energy storage in low-carbon electricity systems (2014) IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, 5 (2), art. no. 6612755, pp. 1098-1109.
Pye, S., Usher, W., Strachan, N. The uncertain but critical role of demand reduction in meeting long-term energy decarbonisation targets (2014) Energy Policy, 73, pp. 575-586.
Qadrdan, M., Wu, J., Jenkins, N., Ekanayake, J. Operating strategies for a gb integrated gas and electricity network considering the uncertainty in wind power forecasts (2014) IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy, 5 (1), art. no. 6589136, pp. 128-138.
Strbac, G., Pollitt, M., Konstantinidis, C.V., Konstantelos, I., Moreno, R., Newbery, D., Green, R. Electricity transmission arrangements in Great Britain: Time for change? (2014) Energy Policy, 73, pp. 298-311.
Welsch, M., Howells, M., Hesamzadeh, M.R., Ó Gallachóir, B., Deane, P., Strachan, N., Bazilian, M., Kammen, D.M., Jones, L., Strbac, G., Rogner, H. Supporting security and adequacy in future energy systems: The need to enhance long-term energy system models to better treat issues related to variability (2014) International Journal of Energy Research, Article in Press.
Zeyringer, M., Andrews, D., Schmid, E., Schmidt, J., Worrell, E. Simulation of disaggregated load profiles and development of a proxy microgrid for modelling purposes (2014) International Journal of Energy Research, Article in Press.

2013

Aunedi, M., Aristidis Kountouriotis, P., Ortega Calderon, J.E., Angeli, D., Strbac, G. Economic and environmental benefits of dynamic demand in providing frequency regulation (2013) IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, 4 (4), art. no. 6578160, pp. 2036-2048.
Bajželj, B., Allwood, J.M., Cullen, J.M. Designing climate change mitigation plans that add up (2013) Environmental Science and Technology, 47 (14), pp. 8062-8069.
Curmi, E., Fenner, R., Richards, K., Allwood, J.M., Bajželj, B., Kopec, G.M. Visualising a Stochastic Model of Californian Water Resources Using Sankey Diagrams (2013) Water Resources Management, 27 (8), pp. 3035-3050.
Mac Dowell, N., Samsatli, N.J., Shah, N. Dynamic modelling and analysis of an amine-based post-combustion CO2 capture absorption column (2013) International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, 12, pp. 247-258.
Papadaskalopoulos, D., Strbac, G. Decentralized participation of flexible demand in electricity markets - Part I: Market mechanism (2013) IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, 28 (4), pp. 3658-3666.
Papadaskalopoulos, D., Strbac, G., Mancarella, P., Aunedi, M., Stanojevic, V. Decentralized participation of flexible demand in electricity markets - Part II: Application with electric vehicles and heat pump systems (2013) IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, 28 (4), pp. 3667-3674.

People

While UCL led wholeSEM, the consortium also included University of Cambridge, Imperial College London and University of Surrey.

UCL

Pascale Davies (Centre Manager)
Mr Francesco Fuso Nerini
Dr Ilkka Keppo (Co-Investigator)
Dr Pei-hao Li
Dr James Price
Professor Neil Strachan (Principal Investigator)
Dr Matthew Winning
Dr Marianne Zeyringer

University of Cambridge

Professor Julian Allwood (Co-Investigator)
Dr Richard Fenner (Co-Investigator)
Dr Richard McMahon (Co-Investigator)
Dr Dennis Konadu
Mr Rick Lupton
Professor Keith Richards (Co-Investigator)
Ms Alexandra Skelton
Dr Zenaida Sobral-Mourao

Imperial

Dr Marko Aunedi
Dr Dimitrios Papadaskalopoulos
Dr Pedro Rivotti
Professor Nilay Shah (Co-Investigator)
Professor Goran Strbac (Co-Investigator)

University of Surrey

Professor Nigel Gilbert (Co-Investigator)
Dr Aimie Hope
Dr Kavin Preethi Narasimha
Dr Maria Xenitidou

Chairs