UK Centre for Research on Energy Demand

该提案响应了研究委员会关于建立国家能源需求研究中心的呼吁，该中心以现有的六个最终用途能源需求中心的工作为基础，其资金将于2018年4月结束。减少能源需求是英国的成功案例，自2004年以来，最终能源消费下降了15%。作为能源系统向低碳转型的一部分，进一步大幅减排是可能的，也是必要的，以实现《巴黎协定》和英国碳预算的目标。此外，低碳能源系统将越来越依赖于不灵活和可变的发电，因此需求也需要变得更加灵活。简而言之，能源需求减少的变化需要走得更远、更快，需求需要变得更加灵活。这些挑战对技术、商业模式、社会实践和政策产生了深远的影响。我们的愿景是在英国的能源需求研究上升到这些挑战。该中心的目标是在英国领导整个系统的能源需求工作，与国内外更广泛的社区合作。我们的目标是提供全球领先的能源需求研究，确保能源需求研究产生更大的影响，并支持能源需求对实现环境，社会和经济目标的重要性。我们的研究计划是跨学科的，认识到技术和社会变革是相互依赖和共同发展的。它分为六个主题。其中三项涉及能源使用主要部门的具体问题，即建筑、运输和工业。其余三个主题涉及推动需求模式不断变化的更具交叉性的问题，即增加灵活性的潜力、数字技术的影响以及能源政策和治理，每个主题都有一个与主要利益攸关方共同制定的研究方案，并将为中心提供能力，以便在其具体工作领域开展知情辩论、产生影响和分享知识。这些主题还将开展合作工作，我们的第一项联合任务是评估能源需求在实现英国政府清洁增长计划目标方面的作用。该中心还将包括应对英国能源需求跨主题问题的挑战。这些将主要是在中心成立初期的协商中制定的，因此只有一个包括在最初的计划中：热量脱碳。该中心将作为能源需求跨学科研究的国家中心。在这样做的过程中，它将需要对迅速变化的能源格局作出反应。因此，教科文组织将保留25%的资金，通过透明的管理程序在中心存在期间进行分配。这些资金将支持进一步的挑战和一个“灵活基金”，该基金将用于支持对新出现的研究问题的研究，特别是通过支持早期职业研究人员。我们正在与商业和政策的主要利益相关者密切合作，以设计我们的研究计划，我们计划详细的知识交流活动，以确保英国能源需求研究界的工作具有更广泛的社会影响。

This proposal responds to a call from the Research Councils for a national Centre on energy demand research, building on the work of the existing six End Use Energy Demand Centres, for which funding ends in April 2018. Energy demand reduction is a UK success story, with a 15% fall in final energy consumption since 2004. Major further reductions are possible and will be needed, as part of a transformation of the energy system to low carbon, to deliver the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UK carbon budgets. Moreover, a low carbon energy system will be increasingly reliant upon inflexible and variable electricity generation, and therefore demand will also need to become more flexible. In short, changes in energy demand reduction will need to go further and faster, and demand will need to become more flexible. These challenges have far-reaching implications for technology, business models, social practices and policy. Our vision is for energy demand research in the UK to rise to these challenges. The Centre's ambition is to lead whole systems work on energy demand in the UK, collaborating with a wider community both at home and internationally. We aim to deliver globally leading research on energy demand, to secure much greater impact for energy demand research and to champion the importance of energy demand for delivering environmental, social and economic goals.Our research programme is inter-disciplinary, recognising that technical and social change are inter-dependent and co-evolve. It is organised into six Themes. Three of these address specific issues in the major sectors of energy use, namely: buildings, transport and industry. The remaining three address more cross-cutting issues that drive changing patterns of demand, namely the potential for increased flexibility, the impact of digital technologies, and energy policy and governance.Each Theme has a research programme that has been developed with key stakeholders and will provide the capacity for the Centre to inform debate, deliver impact and share knowledge in its specific area of work. The Themes will also undertake collaborative work, with our first joint task being to assess the role of energy demand in delivering the objectives of the UK Government's Clean Growth Plan. The Centre will also include Challenges that respond to cross-thematic questions for UK energy demand. These will mostly be developed in consultation over the early years of the Centre, and therefore only one is included in the initial plan: on the decarbonisation of heat. The Centre will function as a national focus for inter-disciplinary research on energy demand. In doing this it will need to respond to a rapidly evolving energy landscape. It will therefore retain 25% of its funds to allocate during the lifetime of the Centre through a transparent governance process. These funds will support further challenges and a 'Flexible Fund', which will be used to support research on emerging research questions, in particular through support for early career researchers. We are working closely with key stakeholders in business and policy to design our research programme and we plan detailed knowledge exchange activities to ensure that the work of the UK energy demand research community has broader societal impact.