Energy Systems Transition: Renewables, Fossil fuels and GGR
Identifying and unlocking value from heat decarbonisation in possible Net Zero futures
Abbas Daruwala
While significant progress has been made in the UK in decarbonising the power sector, the provision of heat faces significant challenges. This project seeks to analyse the economic opportunities that can arise from multiple decarbonisation pathways through a value pool approach. It also carries out a comparison between previous carbon reduction targets and more ambitious net zero targets in the UK. Following on from that, it carries out the feasibility study with a view to inform market and regulatory reform and inspire business model innovation that can capture this value in the transition.
Supervisors:
Dr. Mark Workman, Energy Futures Lab
Dr. Jeffrey Hardy, The Grantham Institute, Imperial College London
The Social Legitimacy of Livestock Land Use Policies: Achieving Net Zero in the UK
Aitana Ramon Guillena
The reported influence of Negative Emission Technologies in the achievement of Net Zero by 2050 is inconsistent with our current progress, in particular within the agricultural sector and the CCC's proposed livestock land-use reduction targets. The understanding of social dimensions related to livestock producers have not been extensively considered in the literature. The success of measures associated with this reduction can be assessed through performing a social legitimacy analysis of farmers’ attitudes - including the acceptance of the suggested pathways to achieve the targets. The implications of these results on the UK’s Net Zero agenda have been further explored.
Supervisors:
Karen Makuch, Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London
Miriam Azcel, Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London
Top-level Analysis of New Business Models to Support Decarbonisation of Industrial Clusters
Amr Mustafa Alwishah
Strategies exists to decarbonize industry, such as fuel switching and CCS. However, adoption is slow due to their high investment costs. Business models are necessary to increase uptake and mitigate barriers to strategy adoption. However, innovations in industrial BM’s are yet to be explored compared to other sectors. There is currently no business model to support decarbonisation of industry within a cluster. My work involves developing and assessing the impacts of business models on accelerating adoption of these strategies in industrial clusters.
Supervisors:
Dr. Gbemi Oluleye, Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London
Anthony Wang, Navigant: A Guidehouse company
Mechanisms for the development of a nature-based GGR market: size and scale-up
Andrea Pollastri
My project aims to analyse and parametrise the market mechanisms that would enable a nature-based GGR proto-market to be developed in the UK. Overcoming the existing market barriers would provide the market accessibility required by the more capital-intensive chemical-based solutions. These are indeed essential to decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors, like the aviation sector, and to help reach the scale of carbon removal necessary to reach Net-Zero by 2050. Ultimately, the market structure for the UK will be assessed for possible GGR development in other geographical areas.
Supervisors:
Dr. Mark Workman, Energy Futures Lab, Imperial College London
Peter Swann, Rolls Royce - Sustainability Department
The Oil Majors' Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change: Discovering Robust Strategies under Uncertainty
Dylan Radovic
As the decade unfolds with lower oil demand projections looming, large, publicly-traded oil and gas companies' adaptive capacity to the impending energy transition will be called into question. The thesis uncovers such adaptivity by exploring the emergent behaviours of the oil Majors in response to market uncertainty. Moreover, it unveils the upside and downside risks of a low-carbon first mover and reveals how well-positioned Majors are currently. The discovery of such outcomes may help navigate the industry towards robust low-carbon business models. This was achieved by utilizing a methodology predicated on game theoretic principles, ‘wargaming’, and deep multi-agent reinforcement learning.
Supervisors:
Lucas Kruitwagen, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford
Christian Schroeder de Witt, Department of Engineering (Torr Vision Group)
Dr. Mark Workman, Energy Futures Lab, Imperial College London
Do electricity market rules need to change to accommodate rising shares of renewable energy?
Elisa Anderson Vazquez
Environmental policies have driven the rapid expansion of renewables and their fall in cost. However, as renewable penetration rises, the traditional market design and policies may no longer be fit for purpose. This project details what challenges need to be overcome to meet decarbonisation targets, assesses how these are currently being tackled and explores alternatives for the future. By analysing recent literature and interviewing high-level stakeholders, it aspires to be an accurate representation of the electricity market design and incentives at a European level.
Supervisors:
Dr. Robert Gross, UKERC / Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London
Strategic fit analysis of Rolls-Royce for the development of a greenhouse gas removal market
Ellie Raphael
Greenhouse gas removal technologies will be required to achieve the UK's target of net-zero by 2050. However, there is currently no market for these technologies which is limiting the scale to which they can be deployed. My project aims to evaluate the capability of a FTSE 100 company, that operates in hard-to-decarbonise sectors, to pivot their current business model in order to remain relevant in possible net zero futures through the development of robust strategies. To assess the robustness of these strategies, a human centred design approach was used to determine the financial viability, technology feasibility and business desirability.
Supervisors:
Dr. Mark Workman, Energy Futures Lab, Imperial College London
Hannah Falberg, Rolls-Royce Plc
Quantifying the potential of fuel switching in Industrial Energy Systems on a micro scale
Faisal Al Balushi
The objective of this paper is to quantify the impact of fuel switching in micro scale industrial energy systems in terms of costs and emissions. Industrial energy systems are in place to provide processes with heat, power or both in order to run certain end-use processes. Fuel switching involves substituting or supplementing fossil fuels used in industrial energy systems with low or no carbon fuels. Whilst fuel substitution has been identified as a strategy to de-carbonize industrial energy provision, the impact for a process site energy system is yet to be quantified. Quantifying the impact entails estimating the CO2 abatement cost and amount.
Supervisors:
Dr. Gbemi Oluleye, Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London
An Evaluation of the UK's Net Zero Carbon Removal Requirement
I Gusti Komang Adhi Yuliartha
The research aim is to conduct an evaluation of the UK net-zero trajectory as prescribed by the Committee on Climate Change and to evaluate if the requirement for Greenhouse Gas Removal Technology has been overstated due to underestimation of the aviation sector’s potential to reduce its emissions. The evaluation then extended to the requirement of Greenhouse Gas Removal Technology to act as a hedging strategy for other sectors that fail to meet their emission reduction target.
Supervisors:
Dr. Mark Workman, Energy Futures Lab, Imperial College London
Adam Morton, Rolls-Royce Plc
Techno-economic Assessment of the Feasibility of Developing Synthetic Fuel Using Direct Air Capture
Omar Zin Abidine
The aim of the project is to conduct a feasibility study for development of e-fuels using DAC as a source of carbon dioxide. Recent developments into this new GGR technology allow it to be utilized for various applications such as syn-fuel production, enhanced oil recovery, or carbon sequestration. In a hard-to-decarbonize and rapidly growing sector like aviation, could sustainable fuels through DAC be an environmental and economic solution in the UK for Rolls-Royce?
Supervisors:
Dr. Mark Workman, Energy Futures Lab, Imperial College London