National Energy Technology Laboratory Annual Meeting

Dr Piera Patrizio has been invited to the US DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) Annual Meeting held in Pittsburgh, on 26-30 August. The event brings together experts from more than 200 DOE’s research projects from the US Department’s Carbon Capture, Utilization, Storage, and Oil and Natural Gas Programs. During the meeting Dr Patrizio will join the plenary panel on International CCS Value Developments’ schedule for August 29. Building on a recent CLR led paper published in Joule, Dr Patrizio will present her latest work on the socio-economic benefits of CCS technologies in low carbon societies with a special focus on EU and US economies. The research has been conducted in collaboration with the Imperial College London, under the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) GGR project.  

Over the past decades, the discussion around sustainable energy systems transition has been conveyed in various energy systems modelling exercises, often using cost metrics as the preferred mean for low carbon scenarios comparison. These modelling efforts suggest that a cost-effective decarbonization of electricity production and distribution systems can be achieved by transitioning on different pathways in terms of technology choice and spatial distribution of production capacity. However, the transformative changes and the societal impacts associated with these pathways is often neglected. It is the central argument of this work that the consideration of how best to value alternative approaches to deliver against sustainable development goals (SDGs), requires a broadening of focus from cost metrics to a wider societal perspective.   

Therefore, Dr Patrizio work proposes a new evaluation framework for national energy systems transition that incorporates the full range of environmental, economic and social dimension of sustainable development. To substantiate the analysis, the specific cases of UK, Spain, and Poland are explored in detail, representing countries where low-energy carbon deployment is economic and technically achievable, but have quite different patterns in terms of economic activity, renewable energy resources and conducted energy transition.

Last edited: 27 August 2019