IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2018 - 50

of green ambition and prosperity; see Figure 1. they de scribe the political, economic, social, and technological
(PeSt) landscape.
the 2 × 2 matrix is based upon the U.K. government's
energy trilemma of sustainability, affordability, and security
of supply. Security of supply is assumed to be met in all
scenarios. this leaves sustainability (green ambition) and
affordability (prosperity) for the models to flex depending
on the scenarios' characteristics. green ambition reflects
the level at which society and policy engages with reducing carbon emissions and increasing sustainability. Prosperity follows the amount of money available in the economy
for government expenditure, business investment, and consumer spending.
the next layer of the framework is a more detailed consideration of the PeSt categories, which become the assumptions.
to each of these assumptions, levers are applied depending on
the conditions applicable to each scenario. these assumptions
and levers are then applied to the demand models, of which
there are more than 50. how the model is structured depends
on how well the demand category is understood. if it is an established demand source, then a modified regression analysis
is applied. if it is a new type of demand, then proxy models are
developed and applied.
For residential modeling, a bottom-up approach is used.
each appliance category is modeled individually, such as
space heating, water heating, and lighting. the outputs are
then combined to produce an overall demand.
For the industrial and commercial demand, a top-down
model is used, which was developed in conjunction with a
third party. it is a 24-sector model that uses historical government data for the basis of an autoregressive-moving-average

analysis. this model has, as an input, high-level economic
data supplied by oxford economics.
once all of the demand levels have been established, the supply models are produced using a similar process and matched to
meet the demand levels that were calculated first. details of the
different modeling methods used can be found in a FES methods document and the outputs in a FES Chart workbook (see
the "For Further reading" section). the models combined
then produce the scenario outputs for FES.
all the models within FES extend out to 2050. most of
them also contain an historical element going back to 2005.
this full history exists in the case of established categories of demand and supply, such as refrigeration demand,
but less so in the new and evolving demand sources, such as
electric vehicles (eVs) and smart meters. the inputs, models,
and outputs take account of stakeholder feedback and are
all subject to internal scrutiny and governance to ensure
their credibility and accuracy.

Decarbonizing Power
the decarbonization of power generation reduces emissions
directly and enables decarbonization in the transport and
heating sectors. the evolution of the power sector in the two
degrees scenario will be discussed in this section.

The Current State of Power Generation
in the United Kingdom

Less Money
Available

Prosperity

More Money
Available

Considering the three sectors of power, heat, and transport in the
United Kingdom, power is seen as leading the way in decarbonization. the past 12 months have seen a number of milestones
achieved. For example, in april 2017, the United Kingdom did
not use any coal for electricity generation for 24 h, the first time
this has happened since the industrial revolution.
a number of renewable generation technologies have seen
sustained growth in the past five
years, notably solar and onshore
and offshore wind. Solar capacity was almost nonexistent in the
Two Degrees
Consumer Power
United Kingdom at the start of the
A World Where Environmental
Sustainability Is Top Priority
A World That Is Relatively
decade. But since 2011, continued
Wealthy and Market Driven
reductions in the cost of photovoltaic panels, alongside the introduction of a feed-in tariff subsidy
regime, have led to huge growth
(see Figure 2).
Solar capacity was also eligible
Slow Progression
Steady State
for
the renewables obligation (ro),
A World Focused on Long-Term
A World Focused on Security of
Environmental Strategy
which required energy suppliers to
Supply and Short-Term Thinking
buy a proportion of their energy
f rom low-ca rbon generators.
Green Ambition
More Focus
Less Focus
more recently, however, the ro
scheme closed to solar capacity
in 2015 (larger projects) and 2016
figure 1. The FES matrix.
50

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july/august 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2018