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一个成功案例，自2004年以来，最终能源消耗下降了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、社会实践和政策都有着深远的影响。我们的愿景是英国的能源需求研究能够应对这些挑战。该中心的目标是与国内外更广泛的社区合作，领导英国能源需求的整个系统工作。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，并倡导能源需求对实现环境、社会和经济目标的重要性。我们的研究项目是跨学科的，认识到技术和社会变革是相互依赖和共同发展的。它被组织成六个主题。其中三个涉及能源使用主要部门的具体问题，即：建筑、运输和工业。其余三个部分涉及更多的跨领域问题，这些问题推动了需求模式的变化，即提高灵活性的潜力、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，将使中心有能力在其具体工作领域为辩论提供信息、产生影响和分享知识。各主题还将开展合作工作，我们的第一个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。这些主要将在中心成立的最初几年进行协商，因此最初的计划中只包括一个：关于热量的脱碳。该中心将作为能源需求跨学科研究的全国中心。在此过程中，中国需要对快速变化的能源格局做出反应。因此，它将保留25%的资金，通过透明的治理程序在中心存续期间进行分配。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兴研究问题的研究，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方面的主要利益相关者密切合作，设计我们的研究项目，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.