Recent Additions to the EDC

To better understand the processes of digitalisation, dematerialisation and decarbonisation, this paper examines the relationship between energy and information for the global economy since 1850. It presents the long run trends in energy intensity and communication intensity, as a proxy for total information intensity. The evidence suggests that, relative to GDP, global economic production has been reducing energy and increasing information use since 1913. The analysis indicates that it initially required little information to replace energy in production and that the ability to substitute away from energy and towards information has been declining. The result implies that the global economy is now reducing energy and increasing information at a substitution rate of 0.2 kB per kWh of conserved energy or 0.8 GB per tonne of carbon dioxide mitigated. As the price ratio of energy to information is currently higher than this marginal rate of substitution, there are incentives to further substitute information for energy. However, one conclusion is that (without the long run escalation of carbon prices) substitution away from energy and towards information is likely to cease within the next few decades and, beyond that, digitalisation will play a declining role in the decarbonisation process.

Automated vehicles (AVs) may represent the most profound technological change in road transport since the rise of vehicle mass production, with reductions in energy demand being one of the many anticipated benefits. This project has explored expectations regarding the potential energy-saving benefits of AVs among two groups ‘professionals’ and the general public. The project has used a Delphi study design. The Delphi method offers an exploratory, flexible and iterative technique to obtain insights into what futures might look like when uncertainty is large. This is the case with AVs as much remains unclear if and when fully autonomous vehicles will be introduced on the UK roads and how automation may interact with electrification and a possible shift away from individual ownership towards forms of shared ownership and use. Delphi studies typically consist of several rounds of surveys that are increasingly conducted online in which participants receive feedback between rounds and can adapt their responses and views based on that feedback. Two separate Delphi studies, each consisting of three rounds, were conducted sequentially in 2019-2020. Delphi studies have traditionally been used to build consensus among participants but this often marginalises more radical imaginings of the future and may underappreciate controversies around future developments. This project has, therefore adopted a dissensus-oriented Delphi, which cultivates divergence of views and is particularly appropriate for emergent topics such as the expected effects on transport and energy of vehicle automation.

The FAIR project explored the causes and links between fuel poverty and transport poverty in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It collected interview data to draw up policy recommendations designed to limit the impacts of double energy vulnerability in the transition to a more sustainable future. Tens of millions of households across Europe struggle to afford adequate electricity and heating services and reliable transportation, while recent high fuel prices could lead to an increase in excess winter deaths. Tackling energy and transport poverty is thus of paramount policy importance. Here, we document the drivers and lived experiences of energy and transport poverty in the United Kingdom based on expert interviews. We find a set of policies that resonate with expert planners, implying they have a level of political and social acceptability that other measures may be lacking, notably: mandatory landlord energy efficiency upgrades, increasing the extent of financial assistance to households, cheaper (or even free) bus and train fares and restarting and expanding bus services. We buttress these findings with further suggestions for energy and transport system redesign that better meets emerging principles of energy and social justice.

The current energy, climate and cost of living crises have affected peoples’ wellbeing, their health, employment and finances showing significant inequalities across population groups and regions. These kinds of challenges entail technological innovation while shifting energy consumption patterns. Yet, the UK transition to Net Zero requires greater transformative change at institutional, infrastructural, sectorial and social levels. Building on Multi Criteria Mapping and survey methods, this paper investigates how citizens value energy demand reduction options for communities’ wellbeing and identifies multiple social, economic, and environmental ‘co-benefits’, often discounted in policy making. While arguing that energy demand mitigation options can improve citizens’ living conditions and quality of life while diminishing energy use and GHG emissions, the paper challenges the adoption of approaches based on conventional economic models to deliver Net Zero. The analysis of two UK-based case studies discloses that citizens prioritise fairness including environmental intergenerational concerns and value restrictions on individuals’ lifestyle choices. The paper calls for better incorporation of citizens’ values in policy on energy demand reduction.

This data collections consists of data and documentation produced to examine the spatial and social differences in people’s lack of access to adequate energy and transport services in the United Kingdom (UK). The work responds to the need for developing a differentiated understanding of both the drivers and expressions of this ‘double energy vulnerability’, while seeking to integrate and analyse relevant information from all four UK nations. Using a variety of statistically representative census and survey datasets, the project developed a series of multi-dimensional indices to map transport- and energy-related injustices. This was followed by a cluster analysis to examine broad-level geographical patterns, and a Geographically Weighted Regression model to explore the spatial variation of vulnerabilities related to contingencies such as income, ethnicity and housing. The work corroborates the results of previous qualitative studies, and research within selected UK nations, while revealing a number of unexpected territorial clusters and underpinnings of infrastructural injustice.

A survey was undertaken with UK energy and climate change stakeholders involved in and/or effected by Brexit - it was undertaken as part of the UK Energy Research Centre (UKRC) funded project on 'Brexit and UK Net Zero Energy Policy'. The survey was designed to ascertain views on the implications of Brexit for energy and climate change policy and politics, and to build knowledge about actual effects in practice. There were 83 respondents - from UK government (Westminster and devolved), business (mainly energy industry and finance), think tanks and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), academics researching Brexit, and representatives of EU countries.

Data from the survey was used to inform the analysis underpinning 2 papers: the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) policy briefing paper, Brexit Implications for UK Decarbonisation Objectives, and the Policy & Politics journal article, Brexit Implications for Sustainable Energy in the UK.

From 2018 to 2023, Innovate UK and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) delivered a major innovation programme focused on smart local energy systems: Prospering from the Energy Revolution.

The programme was funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. Its aim: to work with businesses, communities and academics to explore intelligently joining up energy supply, storage and use at a local and regional level.

We live, work and travel in regions, cites, towns and communities. Yet our energy infrastructure is still very centralised – sending energy one way, from bulk supply points to the networks’ edges where we live and work.

This programme asked: what if we could bring together energy supply, storage and use to create energy-smart places, enabled by the latest technologies? Could we balance supply and demand locally, improve flexibility and resilience, save costs and carbon, and create new ways of living with energy?

With £104m of funding from UKRI, the programme funded over 80 projects around the UK, from feasibility studies to large-scale demonstrators.

The result: a rich bank of learning and evidence that will help everyone working to unlock the potential of place-based energy.

This spreadsheet contains the results for the article, "Meeting the costs of decarbonising industry – the potential effects on prices and competitiveness (a case study of the UK)". These include projected impacts for industrial process decarbonisation (costs, fuel use, residual emissions), for key years (2030, 2040, 2050), distributed in the following ways:

• Directly allocated to industrial sector in which they occur


• Shared between sectors in proportion to the share of GVA of each supply chain


• Embodied in final products


• Embodied in final products, aggregated to consumption patterns

The source of the projections and the method to perform the distribution are described in detail in the associated article.

The Annual Gas and Electricity Consumption at Meter Level, Great Britain, 2004-2022: Secure Access study includes annual gas and electricity consumption data at an individual property level, covering England, Scotland and Wales from 2004 onwards. Both domestic and non-domestic properties are included.

Energy Systems Catapult was set up to accelerate the transformation of the UK’s energy system and ensure UK businesses and consumers capture the opportunities of clean growth. The Catapult is an independent, not-for-profit centre of excellence that bridges the gap between industry, government, academia and research. This links to the searchable interface for the public datasets.

This work benchmarks the existing UK cold chain and provides robust evidence-based data on emissions in 2020. Only emissions from refrigeration within UK borders was considered, both from refrigerant leakage and from electrical power usage. Energy consumption For energy consumption the Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES) was widely used. This data is compiled by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and contains data for many years up until the current year. The United Kingdom Statistics Authority has designated these statistics as National Statistics, in accordance with the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 and therefore they were considered as the most accurate data available. DUKES data does not always differentiate the energy consumed by refrigeration systems in each of the cold chain sectors and therefore further analysis and assumptions were often required. Energy consumption values shown were collated per year for the years 2019/2020, unless otherwise stated. Emissions from refrigerant leakage The main GHG refrigerants are the fluorinated gases (f-gases); hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs). According to Brown et al (Brown et al., 2021) emissions of f-gases can occur at various stages of the refrigeration equipment life-cycle: During manufacturing, During installation, Over the operational lifetime, At disposal. The most comprehensive source of information for direct emissions is the UK Greenhouse Gas Inventory. This contains national greenhouse gas emission estimates for the period 1990-2019 and is the United Kingdoms National Inventory Report (NIR) submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It includes losses during manufacture/initial charging and at decommissioning as well as losses in use.

Interviews with actors concerned with local transport decarbonisation in the UK, including challenges related to finance, governance arrangements, and public support. Data were collected using a series of 54 interviews, spread equally across three case study sites: 18 Nottingham, 18 Leeds, and 18 Oxford. Of those, 12 of the Nottingham interviews, all 18 of the Leeds interviews, and 8 of the Oxford interviews are shared in this data deposit (the rest did not give permission for their data to be deposited). The interviews were designed to reveal different local perspectives on areas recent attempts to decarbonise their transport system. The initial introduction to each participant was facilitated by pre-existing professional contacts, after which subsequent participants were identified by snowballing (i.e. feedback from interview participants) in combination with criteria-specific identification (i.e. from a review of published local authority documents

Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading could help address grid management challenges in a decentralizing electricity system, as well as provide other social and environmental benefits. Many existing and proposed trading schemes are enabled by blockchain, a distributed ledger technology (DLT) relying on cryptographic proof of ownership rather than human intermediaries to establish energy transactions. This study used an online survey experiment (n = 2064) to investigate how consumer demand for blockchain-enabled peer-to-peer energy trading schemes in the United Kingdom varies depending on how the consumer proposition is designed and communicated. The analysis provides some evidence of a preference for schemes offering to meet a higher proportion of participants energy needs and for those operating at the city/region (as compared to national or neighbourhood) level. People were more likely to say they would participate when the scheme was framed as being run by their local council, followed by an energy supplier, community energy organization, and social media company. Anonymity was the most valued DLT characteristic and mentioning blockchains association with Bitcoin led to a substantial decrease in intended uptake. We highlight a range of important questions and implications suggested by these findings for the introduction and operation of P2P trading schemes.

We set out to study how the promise of green 5G is produced and circulated. We conducted an analysis of a UK-focused corpus of documents that represent key sites through which the promise of green 5G is produced, circulated and challenged. By the promise of green 5G we refer to an emerging, overarching, dominant expectation that 5G will produce positive environmental sustainability benefits of various kinds. We employed an analytical approach informed by the sociology of expectations and the concept of technoscientific promises. We asked: what are the particular contents of this promise (i.e. the more specific promises and expectations it is built upon), how do enactors seek to boost its legitimacy and credibility, what activities are involved in its production and circulation and what are its present-day material effects, does the promise exclude or overlook alternative options, and is it challenged? We pursued these aims and questions through a document analysis of a diverse corpus (n=260) comprised of UK newspaper articles and newswire results, and reports and webpage content from industry, standardisation bodies and research consortia.

This data collection includes a User Guide and the anonymised transcripts of 30 semi-structured interviews of #60-90 minutes each, with 31 high household energy consumers, about their homes, appliances, infrastructures, vehicles, and everyday life and travel practices that generate household (domestic and travel-related) energy demand. It also includes the anonymised transcripts of 4 3-hour deliberatively workshops of ~8 public participants and 2 facilitators, one recruited from the interviewees, and the others recruited to represent different levels of domestic and travel-related energy consumption, held to discuss the validity, fairness, effectively and acceptability of four broad policy approaches to reduce (particularly high levels of) household energy consumption: Rationing; Economic (Dis)Incentives; Structural Change; and Behaviour Change

Using heat demand data for domestic buildings sourced from the UKERC Energy Data Centre's "Spatio-temporal heat demand for LSOAs in England and Wales", we have identified Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOAs) exhibiting a linear heat density surpassing 2900 kWh/m indicating their potential suitability for a heat network. We have integrated borehole information from the British Geological Survey (BGS) Single Onshore Borehole Index (SOBI), the average thermal conductivity of general soils and rocks, SAP 10.2 annual average temperature on the ground surface, and the average geothermal gradient for council areas in Great Britain. Employing the specific heat extraction rate methodology, and referencing MCS 022 Borehole Heat Exchanger look-up tables, we have generated comprehensive heat supply potential data from boreholes.

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