Examination of Witnesses (Questions 231
- 239)
WEDNESDAY 1 DECEMBER 2004
PROFESSOR JIM
SKEA, PROFESSOR
PAUL EKINS,
PROFESSOR GEOFF
HAMMOND and MR
RICHARD STARKEY
Q231 Chairman: Could we welcome our
visitors very warmly and thank you very much for coming to talk
to us today. I think you have been told that we are being broadcast
on the Internet for, I am sure, the waiting millions who are listening!
Perhaps just for the record it would be helpful if you would just
introduce yourselves.
Professor Skea: Okay. I am Professor Jim Skea.
I am research director for the UK Energy Research Centre.
Professor Ekins: I am Professor Paul Ekins.
I am head of the Environment Group at the Policies Studies Institute
and co-director of the UK Energy Research Centre in charge of
its energy systems and modelling theme.
Professor Hammond: I am Professor Geoff Hammond
from the University of Bath. I am a mechanical engineer, but I
also run the International Centre for the Environment at Bath.
Obviously I am here supporting the UK Energy Research Centre.
Mr Starkey: My name is Richard Starkey. I am
from the University of Manchester. I work for the Tyndall Centre
for Climate Change Research and for the last fifteen months I
have been working on a project assessing domestic tradable quotas.
Q232 Chairman: Thank you very much
indeed. I thought, just to outline the direction in which we will
move this afternoon, we might for the first nearly half hour or
so concentrate on research questions, what research is being done
and the progress of the Energy Research Centre, and then perhaps
halfway through switch to the economic instruments, the financial
incentives (or otherwise) to promote energy efficiency because
your expertise really falls into those two halves, although any
one of you can feel free to respond. You can see our names in
front of us as we sit so we will not stop to introduce ourselves,
and I think you have had in your information beforehand our declared
interests so we do not need to say anything again. I think probably,
Professor Skea, this first question is directed to you. I do not
know whether you read our main Committee report on renewables
in which we were quite forthright about our anxieties about the
slow progress of the research centre, and at that time Dr Peter
Hedges admitted that it would be four or five years before a proposed
international research centre was fully established. Perhaps I
could start by asking you if that is still your view?
Professor Skea: Well, I do hope that progress
has begun to accelerate during this current year. The situation
is that I was appointed as Research Director designate in April
of this year and the task I was given was to prepare a proposal
for an initial work programme for the research centre, which I
did by about the end of May and which was approved by the Research
Councils at the end of June. What has happened since then is over
the summer we got down to the nitty-gritty of putting the contractual
agreements in place and we do now have a contract for the work
programme of the centre which runs from 1 October this year through
to the end of March 2009. So we have a contract in place. It is,
as they say, a distributed centre. There are a number of Universities
and Institutions involved. We have also been able to put in place
the various sub-contracts which are associated with these other
groups. Needless to say, it does take time to get things off the
ground. By starting on 1 October we rather missed the deadline
for that particular academic year, for example, in putting studentships
in place. Nevertheless, a number of our participants operate in
such a way that they have research groups where they can flexibly
move people around from one project to another and some of our
groups have actually been able to make a relatively prompt start
in getting things going. But the big tasks at the moment are actually
getting the staff in place to deliver the programme of work that
we promised and we will be moving up to, I would say, a substantive
programme of activity by about March or April of next year. I
should just say perhaps two other things. There will be a significant
review of our progress in about two years' time and there is the
possibility of changes in direction at that point. Obviously the
milestone of March 2009, when we end our full first phase, is
one which I think we are already paying some attention to.
Q233 Chairman: And the review will
be by whom?
Professor Skea: It will be carried out by the
Research Councils. We have a supervisory board which the research
councils are collectively appointing.
Q234 Lord Lewis of Newnham: Could
you just tell us how many numbers are involved in this, students
and staff and things of this nature?
Professor Skea: Yes. When I ran through the
count of the number of individuals who were actually named in
the proposal I think I got to around 40 or 45 people altogether,
not all of whom would be acting full-time. For example, we have
divided the research and coordination programme into six different
themes and each of these themes is led by a senior academic, such
as Paul Ekins who is sitting beside me, and they may be contributing
perhaps 30 to 40 per cent of their time, whereas the more junior
staff will have a larger commitment.
Q235 Lord Wade of Chorlton: Could
I just ask, what is your view on the effectiveness of what is
in fact a virtual centre? In other words, as you described it,
distributed around rather than actually establishing one single
centre with a director and a group of staff in place? How much
more effective do you think such a research centre would be?
Professor Skea: In principle, I think having
a research centre which had a sort of bricks and mortar concept
behind it would be advantageous in the sense that people can meet
each other around the corridor and can meet more informally over
coffee. However, I think it has to be said that given the history
of energy research in the UK over the last 10 to 15 years or so,
the competences that we have are rather distributed geographically
in terms of the different aspects of the energy centre. So the
places where you would find expertise in industrial energy efficiency
may not be the places where you would find expertise in nuclear
engineering, for example, and I think certainly at this stage
it makes sense to try and overcome the obvious obstacles associated
with this distributed centre. I have to say the term does not
slide easily over my lips because it is almost an oxymoron, but
I think it is our duty to try and make that kind of operation
work at this particular stage.
Q236 Lord Wade of Chorlton: In other
words, it is better than nothing but it is not as good as it might
be?
Professor Skea: I think that would be a fair
way of putting it, yes.
Lord Wade of Chorlton: That is my view,
too.
Q237 Baroness Sharp of Guildford:
I perhaps should know this, but what is the funding associated
with the centre?
Professor Skea: The funding associated with
the centre itself is £13 million over the five year period
and the centre itself sits inside the wider towards a sustainable
energy economy programme, which is worth £28 million over
the same five year period. It is worthwhile saying that that total
sum of money is associated with the period up to the Spending
Review 2002. There are still potentially some funds to be distributed
under the 2004 Spending Review.
Q238 Baroness Sharp of Guildford:
Are most of the groups involved in that involved also in this
towards the sustainable energy programme as well?
Professor Skea: The towards a sustainable energy
economy programme will engage a much wider range of groups around
the UK. It is difficult to say at the moment because the four
themes under which it is being commissioned were still sub
judice in terms of it going through peer review and things
being decided, but having seen the applications and having sat
as an observer on the committees doing the selection I can say
it will be a much wider range of people engaged.
Q239 Baroness Sharp of Guildford:
And are you looking to raising any further co-funding from, for
example, European programmes or anything like that?
Professor Skea: Yes. Well, obviously an issue
for the centre itself is that it does not have a legal personality
and hence cannot apply for European funds, but what we can do,
I think, is act as facilitators to try and get the partners who
are engaged in the centre engaged in the European programmes and
begin to act as a kind of marriage broker, as it were, to take
things forward. So that certainly would be the case. The other
thing in terms of co-funding is we would certainly be looking
for other sources of funding in the UK, whether it was from the
corporate sector or other sources.
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