An integrated systematic analysis of uncertainties in UK energy transition pathways

By S. Pye, N. Sabio, N. Strachan. 2015

129 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Policy goals to transition national energy systems to meet decarbonisation and security goals must contend with multiple overlapping uncertainties. These uncertainties are pervasive through the complex nature of the system, the long term consequences of decisions, and in the models and analytical approaches used. These greatly increase the challenges of informing robust decision making. Energy system studies have tended not to address uncertainty in a systematic manner, relying on simple scenario or sensitivity analysis. This paper utilises an innovative UK energy system model, ESME, which characterises multiple uncertainties via probability distributions and propagates these uncertainties to explore trade-offs in cost effective energy transition scenarios. A linked global sensitivity analysis is used to explore the uncertainties that have most impact on the transition. The analysis highlights the strong impact of uncertainty on delivering the required emission reductions, and the need for an appropriate carbon price. Biomass availability, gas prices and nuclear capital costs emerge as critical uncertainties in delivering emission reductions. Further developing this approach for policy requires an iterative process to ensure a complete understanding and representation of different uncertainties in meeting mitigation policy objectives.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/780be0d26ee0a849f646a717ec8d5ea780b74045

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Electrical and Electronic Engineering

1. Volker Krey
2. Bas J. van Ruijven
3. Charlie Wilson

In Environmental Engineering

1. D. V. van Vuuren
2. Volker Krey
3. E. Thompson
4. Céline Guivarch
5. Valeria Jana Schwanitz
6. Elmar Kriegler
7. Bas J. van Ruijven
8. Charlie Wilson

In Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

1. D. V. van Vuuren
2. Elmar Kriegler
3. Volker Krey
4. Bas J. van Ruijven
5. Charlie Wilson
6. E. Thompson
7. Céline Guivarch
8. Valeria Jana Schwanitz

Citations in the corpus

• Evaluating process-based integrated assessment models of climate change mitigation (2017, methodology): “These have been used to explore the multi-dimensional global space spanned by uncertain model inputs and parameters, both in single models (Pye et al. 2015), and in MIPs (Bosetti et al. 2015; Marangoni et al. 2017; McJeon et al. 2011).”