Context and background: Looking to the future, there are major uncertainties about how social and institutional rhythms might fit with decarbonised and renewable energy systems (Labanca 2017). Energy systems (gas, oil, electricity and related demands) have always had a degree of flexibility in how demand meets supply and vice versa.
Aim: This project develops methods of conceptualising and evaluating actual and potential flexibility within and between energy systems over time and at different scales.
Questions and methods: How has flexibility been managed in the past? Historians of infrastructures and energy will synthesise evidence of flexibility gaps and crises in transport, gas and electricity systems and draw lessons for the future (8 commissioned studies/literature reviews/industry feedback). How flexible is the energy system today? We will develop methods of mapping energy-system flexibility at national and city scale.
We will use data on pinch points, and ‘reserves’ (e.g. National Grid data on STOR events; the BEIS sub-national road transport consumption data) to develop methods of representing the changing relation between supply, demand and service provision for gas, electricity and vehicle fuel in space and time (Shove et al. 2009). How
are future flexibilities envisioned and established? We need to know what visions of demand adaptability and timing are inscribed in present and future infrastructure plans, and how institutional arrangements ‘block’ or facilitate demand-side flexibility at different scales (see 6.3.1). Turning the problem around, we explore plausible patterns of time-use consistent with significant decarbonisation of energy supply and much greater
reliance on renewables (secondary data analysis/interviews with national organisations (National Grid, Ofgem, DfT, NIC); and city authorities/interactive feedback/time use and practice scenarios/international workshop).
Outputs: a single flexibility ‘map’ of gas, electricity and vehicle fuel showing headroom over time, identifying thresholds/critical points relating to increased and decreased demand and showing when and where these occur + workshop; commissioned analyses of flexibility in the past; review of current thinking about the future
timing of demand and flexibility and analysis of proposed plans; time-energy scenarios + international workshop. 3 Journal articles; 1 special issue.
October 2018 – September 2020