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This all-day event brought together project developers, civil servants and energy policy professionals to discuss the future of local energy.
A strong theme to emerge from the workshop was the shift from single-technology investments (such as a solar farm) to more joined-up projects that incorporate not just electricity generation but also storage and district heating. Increased availability of data relating to energy use is also allowing demand to be managed more efficiently to reduce waste.
This type of whole-system thinking is what IMechE members have been encouraging since my arrival as engineering policy adviser last year. The Institution is well-placed to bring together people from all sectors of the energy industry to facilitate a systems approach to policy development. In particular, enabling discussions between practitioners and researchers often accelerates learning and innovation to make the journey from lab to market faster and more successful.
The government is encouraging this through its industrial strategy and sector deals. It hopes these will create “partnerships between the government and industry on sector-specific issues to create opportunities to boost productivity, employment, innovation and skills”.
Nine sector deals have been published to date, with offshore wind – a technology whose development is regarded as a success story of British industrial policy – being the most recent.
In a speech last year entitled “After the trilemma,” business secretary Greg Clark said that we are entering a new paradigm. The falling cost of renewable energy, along with advances in battery storage, smart grids and artificial intelligence, are accelerating the pace of change, he said. However, the government recognises that solar and wind power are not sufficient on their own, especially in decarbonising the non-power sectors.
Energy minister Claire Perry has made a commitment to the deployment of carbon capture and storage in the 2020s, while the then industry minister Richard Harrington said that the development of small modular nuclear reactors remains at the core of the government’s industrial strategy.
With such a wide array of activities taking place in the industry, the IMechE, with its breadth of knowledge, can play a key role in encouraging whole-system thinking in the development of the country’s energy policy.