Future Energy Mix

UK Government policy is to move towards a 60% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050, although recent scientific evidence indicates that even this level of reduction may not be sufficient to control climate change adequately. Such dramatic cuts in CO2 will necessarily involve radical changes in our energy system and incremental changes are most unlikely to deliver this policy objective. This Work Stream considers the kind of radical changes necessary for major CO2 reductions and examines the implication for the energy networks. After an initial study extending FlexNet work on scenarios, two major developments are considered;

(1) a dramatic increase in electrical energy use as fossil fuels are reserved for transport
(2) a distributed energy future with integrated energy networks.