House of Lords - Science and Technology

Select Committee on Science and Technology Written Evidence

Memorandum by Research Councils UK (RCUK)

INTRODUCTION

1. Research Councils UK (RCUK) is a strategic partnership that champions the research supported by the seven UK Research Councils. Through RCUK the Research Councils together with the Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB) are creating a common framework for research, training and knowledge transfer.

2. This memorandum is submitted by Research Councils UK on behalf of four of the Research Councils, and represents our independent views. It does not include or necessarily reflect the views of the Office of Science and Technology (OST). RCUK welcomes the opportunity to respond to this inquiry from the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee.

3. This memorandum provides evidence from RCUK in response to each of the questions outlined in the inquiry, in addition to supplementary views from each Research Council:

OMMENTS

4. The Research Councils recognise the important role of energy efficiency in contributing to the Government's goal of achieving a 20 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2010. The Research Councils believe that investments in research in energy efficiency and energy use, alongside investments in renewable and sustainable power generation research, are indispensable to allow a transition to a low carbon economy. This investment is also important to achieve the other goals set out in the 2003 Energy White Paper: a reliable energy supply, competitive markets to raise the rate of sustainable economic growth, and to ensure that every home is adequately and affordably heated.

5. The Research Councils fund, or carry out, a diverse range of research into the development and introduction of potential energy efficiency measures in areas extending from the built environment to industrial processes and products, from materials to power generation, and from markets and regulation to organisational and individual behaviour.

6. EPSRC, ESRC and NERC fund research and post-graduate training in science and engineering. The majority of this funding is provided to UK universities. CCLRC, through the Laboratories, and NERC, through its Research Centres, also carry out research directly. The evidence presented in this submission relates mainly to the Research Councils' role as research funders. Therefore, the Committee's request for information on:

"the funding and co-ordination of research into energy efficiency measures in the domestic and industrial sectors, and how well research is transferred into applications"

is addressed first. Evidence is provided for the other questions where relevant.

The funding and co-ordination of research into energy efficiency measures in the domestic and industrial sectors, and how well research is transferred into applications

7. The Research Councils recognise the importance of conducting technology-based research in the context of a thorough understanding of markets, consumer demand and public acceptability and, within this context, cross-Council initiatives, in collaboration with stakeholders, play a crucial role. The cross-Council activities addressing energy efficiency are the "Towards a Sustainable Energy Economy" Programme (TSEC), the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change and the Carbon Vision Programme.

"Towards a Sustainable Energy Economy" Programme (TSEC)

— The £28 million TSEC programme was funded through the 2002 Spending Review (£20 million) and the Performance and Innovation Unit (£8 million). Funding was provided to EPSRC, ESRC and NERC. TSEC is a broad-based programme of research which aims to enable the UK to access a secure, safe, diverse and reliable energy supply at competitive prices, while meeting the challenge of global warming. TSEC is a multidisciplinary research programme that will adopt whole systems integrated approaches.

— Through TSEC, the Research Councils are supporting the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) to provide a focus for energy research in the UK and for international collaboration. UKERC will co-ordinate a National Energy Research Network bringing together researchers across engineering, the environmental, life, physical and social sciences and key stakeholders. UKERC will also act as a focus for knowledge transfer and public engagement. The Energy Research Centre meeting place at Oxford University will provide a physical locus for networking activities, both national and international, and will host short, collaborative, multidisciplinary projects aimed at making rapid progress on key scientific challenges. The UKERC, working with the research community and funding stakeholders, will develop a "National Research Atlas". This Atlas will seek to record the consensus on the sequence of research problems to be overcome before new technologies (including more energy efficient technologies) can be commercially viable. Furthermore, it will identify active research and key gaps. The contribution to UKERC from the TSEC programme is £15 million over approximately five years from April 2004.

— UKERC research themes relevant to energy efficiency are:

— "Demand Reduction" which addresses the challenge of reducing demand for energy through the introduction of new technologies and influencing consumer behaviour, while covering concerns about distribution and affordability.

— "Energy Systems and Modelling" which will develop new scenarios and modelling approaches and tools bringing together demand and supply-side factors.

— "Technology and Policy Assessment" which will provide a scientifically rigorous assessment of current research knowledge to address well-defined technology or policy questions identified in partnership with stakeholders from industry, government, regulators, NGOs and bodies such as the Carbon Trust. Assessments will cover issues such as: technical and economic potential of emerging technologies; energy system evolution; social, economic and environmental impacts; and policy and regulatory options and needs.

— An Energy R&D project database, to include all relevant Research Council grants, in addition to projects funded by Government Departments and bodies such as the Carbon Trust, the Energy Savings Trust and the Tyndall Centre. This will co-ordinate nationally all the energy research groups and help create a roadmap of energy research in the UK.

— The UKERC will engage in knowledge transfer activities to support wealth creation, both nationally and in the regions, to ensure that both the Centre's research and research carried out within the National Energy Research Network is effectively linked to business. To underpin knowledge transfer, the Centre is developing a strategy on regional engagement with the Devolved Administrations, Regional Development Agencies, business and other regional stakeholders. UKERC has already begun to identify regional contact points to facilitate access to the Centres' resources and provide a gateway to research capacity in each region. The strategy will focus initially on those regions where energy has been identified as a strategic priority and establish country/regional contact points in Scotland, Wales, the North East and the North West.

— Research complementary to that of the UKERC is being commissioned under TSEC's "Carbon Management" and "Managing New Uncertainties" themes, which may include additional work of relevance to energy efficiency. Further work on energy efficiency is planned in a second phase of the TSEC programme, but this depends on funding from the 2004 Spending Review.

TYNDALL CENTRE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE

— The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research is funded by NERC, EPSRC and ESRC. The Centre has research collaborations with numerous partners such as the CCLRC, the Environment Agency, Defra and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. The Tyndall Centre supports transdisciplinary research, assessment and communication of the options to mitigate, and the necessities to adapt to climate change within the context of sustainable development. The Centre's total budget for the first phase of funding is £10 million over five years. Research relevant to energy efficiency comes under the research theme "Decarbonising Modern Societies", which aims to provide technical, regulatory, social and policy options to reduce atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases nationally and globally. The total expenditure in this theme amounted to £2 million over the life of the present first funding phase. To aid knowledge transfer, the DTI additionally provides £70k per year to allow the Centre to run a Business Liaisons Programme.

CARBON VISION PROGRAMME

— EPSRC, in partnership with the Carbon Trust supports "Carbon Vision", a £14 million R&D programme on low carbon innovation. The Programme aims to build and consolidate UK research and development capability relevant to low carbon technology and to encourage cooperation between the research community and businesses. The "Buildings for Low Carbon Communities" consortium (£5.4 million) is funded through the Carbon Vision Programme and address energy efficiency research (see also paragraph 15). ESRC and NERC also contribute to Carbon Vision activities on a case-by-case basis.

8. In addition to the cross-Research Council activities, EPSRC and ESRC have a portfolio of research activities related to energy efficiency. The expenditure of each Research Council in the financial years 2000-04 is summarised in the following Table:


	2000-01 £	2001-02 £	2002-03 £	2003-04 £	2004-05 £

EPSRC	1.4 million	1.6 million	1.9 million	1.2 million	1.2 million
ESRC	25k	50k	150k	250k	300k

Notes on data: 1.The data presented in the table are for expenditure on grants in the financial years shown. 2.The data is incomplete for 2004-05. 3.The EPSRC data was collected using a keyword search to capture research on improved energy usage, minimisation of energy usage through more efficient processes, products and energy management. This includes some Carbon Vision research. ESRC data includes the Sustainable Technologies Programme. 4.The data shown do not include the ESRC (£1.25 million) or EPSRC (£3.75 million) contributions to the £10 million Tyndall Centre Programme. 5.The data shown do not include TSEC or the UK Energy Research Centre.

9. All Research Councils have mechanisms to facilitate knowledge transfer, for example through collaborative research grants and collaborative training.

10. Sixty five per cent of EPSRC's energy efficiency related research grants have one or more collaborators. The collaborators include, for example, local government and supermarkets, in addition to companies in the construction and power sector. Other knowledge transfer activities funded by EPSRC include the Integration of New and Renewable Energy into Buildings Faraday Partnership, research secondments into industry working on energy efficient and cost effective power semiconductor devices and a research network on comfort and energy use in buildings. More details are provided in Annex 2.

11. ESRC facilitates the involvement of potential research users at all stages of the research process from the initial identification of research issues, the conduct of the research, through to the communication of results and their transformation into policy and practice. Research and experience suggests that engagement throughout the research process is more effective in achieving impact and knowledge transfer than relying solely on end of research dissemination and knowledge transfer activities alone. For example, research projects under ESRC's Sustainable Technologies Programme are being conducted in collaboration and partnership with a range of key stakeholders including a number of power supply and distribution companies, the Energy Saving Trust, Regional Development Agencies and local authorities. The Programme has close links with a range of key stakeholders such as the Sustainable Development Commission, Defra and DTI. A further example is provided by the Programme's Network on Sustainable Consumption, co-sponsored by Defra and convened by Green Alliance. This has provided a network bringing together researchers, policy-makers (Cabinet Office, DTI, Defra, Treasury) and key figures from business in a dialogue about recent developments in research on consumption behaviour.

The behavioural aspects of energy efficiency schemes—the quantity and quality of information available on energy efficiency, and whether the public is sufficiently knowledgeable and motivated to achieve energy savings

12. The Research Councils believe that people's choices and practices can lead to more sustainable patterns of consumption, crucial to the introduction of energy efficiency measures alongside new and more sustainable technologies. Research into the behavioural aspects of energy efficiency is underway through:

— The Tyndall Centre, within the theme "Decarbonising Modern Societies" (see paragraph 7).

— The Carbon Vision Programme in low carbon buildings. More details are provided below (paragraph 15).

— The UKERC "Demand Reduction" research theme (see paragraph 7).

— The ESRC's £3 million Sustainable Technologies Programme which seeks to analyse what makes technologies sustainable, assess the roles technological and behavioural change can play in achieving more sustainable futures, and to reveal the social and economic processes that foster or inhibit innovation for sustainable development. More details are provided in Annex 3.

The scope and incentives for improving energy efficiency and reducing waste, across the economy, in both private and public sectors

13. Energy efficiency savings can be supported by a variety of measures, including incentives, regulations, advice and public information. The Research Councils believe that new technology could contribute significantly to increased energy efficiency, with research into, for example, advanced insulation materials, compressed air systems, combined heat and power technologies, light emitting diodes (LED), and control and combustion technologies. While such new and more sustainable technologies offer great potential, they cannot in themselves ensure sustainability. Key barriers to the uptake of sustainable energy initiatives within organisations need to be identified and overcome. The role of people's choices and practices in achieving more sustainable patterns of consumption needs to be better understood. As part of this, more attention needs to be paid to the services and practices that energy consumption makes possible and how the transformation of resource intensive combinations of consumption, routines and habits might be achieved. Further details are provided in the Annexes.

14. The Programme on Environmental Decision-Making at the Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE), University of East Anglia, is undertaking research under a number of key themes including the attitudes of decision-makers and the enablers and barriers to the adoption of green energy initiatives (purchase of green energy and the on-site installation of CHP and renewable energy installations).

The potential for technological improvements to the energy efficiency of new and existing buildings, and how these should be implemented

15. One of the major Carbon Vision investments is the ambitious £5.4 million Buildings for Low Carbon Communities consortium which started in October 2004. The aims of the consortium are to demonstrate how carbon emissions from the UK building stock can be reduced by 50 per cent by 2030, and to act as a catalyst for action to achieve these savings. Research will include buildings stock inventories; modelling of energy use; and householders' use of energy-consuming appliances and services. This will also include the impact on energy consumption of social trends; changes in fuel prices; technological changes; as well as changes in buildings themselves. The Consortium aims to predict the impact on present and future carbon emissions of a range of policies and interventions.

16. The Tyndall Centre supports research at the University of Oxford on the "40 per cent House" which is seeking to identify the main policy implications of the Royal Commission for Environmental Pollution (RCEP) recommendation that a 60 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions in the domestic sector should be achieved by 2050. The study is considering both reduced demand and household-level new and renewable energy supply technologies and assessing both total energy consumption and power demand levels. Initially the project aims to establish likely levels of consumption as a result of trends in household numbers, equipment ownership, effects of climate change (on heating and cooling) and known policies. The potential for reductions will incorporate changed levels of building and demolition in the housing stock, decision trees on technology choices to avoid incompatibility, new Building Regulation standards, more efficient appliances and so forth. Consumer attitudes to and choices from lower carbon options will be investigated through focus groups, together with the impact of in-house energy supply (photovoltaic, micro-CHP, etc). Policy avenues will be identified partly through backcasting from the RCEP scenarios, as well as forecasting from the housing and domestic energy and carbon stock model.

17. EPSRC, ESRC and NERC (together with BBSRC and PPARC) have also considered the energy efficiency of their Polaris House building in Swindon. Energy usage is closely monitored and controlled, as part of the environmental management of the building. An independently commissioned review in November 2003 concluded that energy consumption at Polaris House was 19 per cent better than the National Indicator Standard. Examples of energy saving initiatives adopted include the installation of a building management system for the control of heating and ventilation, solar reflective windows and blinds and low energy lighting systems and sensors.

The development and promotion of energy-efficient consumer goods

18. The Research Councils believe that research on energy-efficient goods should encompass the technological challenges, practices of use, and convention and consumption attitudes.

19. Research sponsored by the ESRC's Sustainable Technologies Programme examines:

— how domestic practices are organised and reorganised in ways that further embed resource intensive technologies as being important, if not essential, for the competent accomplishment of daily life;

— the trade-offs faced by individuals when making purchasing decisions, including the criteria used by individuals in buying greener products;

— the role of community energy initiatives in the take-up of available technologies.

20. The ESRC Centre for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society (BRASS), University of Cardiff, is conducting in-depth research on the electronics industry (specifically ICTs, large and small household appliances and consumer electronic) in North America, Europe and the Far East to explore changing business and stakeholder relationships within supply chains in response to issues of sustainability and accountability from the differing perspectives of regulators/policy-makers, producers, suppliers, retailers and consumers as well as the influence of other stakeholders (eg NGOs). Issues being explored include environmental specifications, stakeholders management and corporate reporting.

Innovative schemes to use district heating or combined heat and power in order to reduce overall energy demand

21. The Tyndall Centre project at CCLRC examines technical, environmental and socio-economic issues to accelerate the introduction of fuel cell CHP technology (see Annex 1, paragraph 6). Fuel cells are an ideal power source for CHP plants in the urban environment, converting a fuel's chemical energy into electricity efficiently, quietly and with minimal pollution at the point of delivery.

22. ESRC's Sustainable Technologies Programme at SPRU, University of Sussex, supports research to explore the technical, regulatory and institutional changes needed to enable large scale take-up of microgeneration of energy at the household level and the implications for the current energy system.

19 http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/Research%20portal.htm Back

20 It is NERC policy for researchers to register their data with the appropriate data centre (following the model of the NERC British Atmospheric Data Centre, for example). Back