Publications
44 results found
Gross R, Blyth W, Heptonstall P, 2010, Risks, revenues and investment in electricity generation: Why policy needs to look beyond costs, Energy Economics, Vol: 32, Pages: 796-804
Steggals W, Gross R, Heptonstall P, 2010, Winds of change: How high wind penetrations will affect investment incentives in the GB electricity sector, Energy Policy, Vol: 39, Pages: 1389-1396
Heptonstall P, Gross R, 2009, Direction of travel, Public Service Review: Transport, Pages: 14-15, ISSN: 1757-0255
Gross R, Heptonstall P, Anable J, et al., 2009, What policies are effective at reducing carbon emissions from surface passenger transport? A review of interventions to encourage behavioural and technological change, London, Publisher: UK Energy Research Centre
Collins C, Gross R, Heptonstall P, 2008, Is there an 'Energy Gap', Proceedings of ICE, Energy, Vol: 161, Pages: 145-157, ISSN: 1751-4231
A number of authors have suggested that the UK faces a ‘looming energy gap’ in the coming decade because of an increasing dependence on imported fuels, the closure of a number of electricity generators and a perceived lack of investment in new generating capacity. Focusing on electricity generation, this paper seeks to clearly define what an energy gap is, explain why there may be concerns over such a gap and identify the reasons why a gap may or may not materialise. A central contention of this paper is that there is confusion over the two forms of energy gap,namely a ‘fuel gap’ that would occur if insufficient fuel were available to generators to produce electricity and a ‘capacity gap’ that would occur with insufficient generation capacity to convert available fuel into electricity. This conflation is unhelpful because the reasons for, and policy responses to, these two forms of gap may be quite distinct. The paper goes on to explore the issues surrounding these two manifestations of an energy gap and how they relate to policy.
Gross R, Heptonstall P, 2008, The costs and impacts of intermittency: An ongoing debate, Energy Policy, Vol: 36, Pages: 4005-4007
A recent issue of Energy Policy carried a new contribution to the ongoing debate over the implications of a high penetration of wind power for the UK electricity system [Oswald, J., Raine, M., Ashraf-Ball, H., 2008. Will British weather provide reliable electricity? Energy Policy 36 (8), 3202–3215]. That paper made a number of points that require comment or qualification, in relation to both system-wide impacts and the impact on conventional thermal generation. The purpose of this forum piece is to respond to these points, and to explain where we believe the Oswald paper risks repeating the mistakes of the past by interpreting data in a selective manner, or by erroneously singling out alarming sounding findings which do not reflect how electricity systems and markets operate. The latest EU renewable energy targets do imply a wind penetration level which is considerably higher than that which has hitherto been envisaged, and new research is require to understand the potential impacts. However, such research must be based on statistical or time series simulation modelling.
Skea J, Anderson D, Green T, et al., 2008, Intermittent renewable generation and maintaining power system reliability, Generation, Transmission & Distribution, Vol: 2, Pages: 82-89, ISSN: 1751-8687
There have been attempts, using various approaches, to assess the additional cost of running an electricity system when intermittent renewable generation is used to provide a significant proportion of the energy. The key issues are the difference, in statistical terms, between the resource availability of the intermittent source and conventional generation and the contribution the intermittent source can make to meet the system peak demand while maintaining system reliability. There is considerable agreement over the capacity credits that can be attributed to renewable energy sources, that is the amount of conventional capacity that renewables can reliablydisplace, yet the implications for costs have proved more controversial. Approaches to calculate changes in overall system cost are examined and an expression for the additional cost that intermittent generation imposes on a system that is attributable to its intermittent nature is identified. Further, it is shown that this expression can be reconciled with approaches that look at intermittent renewables on a stand-alone basis and factor in the additional costs of ‘standby’ capacity. It is shown that the main source of divergence between estimates of the cost of intermittency is the load factor implicitly assumed for the conventional plant used as a reference. There is only one consistent way to impute the costs of intermittency when the unit cost of intermittent plant is being compared with that of baseload generation plant.
Foxon TJ, Gross R, Heptonstall P, et al., 2007, Energy Technology Innovation: A Systems Perspective, Report for the Garnaut Climate Change Review, Publisher: ICEPT
Gross R, Heptonstall P, Leach M, et al., 2007, The UKERC Review of the Costs and Impacts of Intermittency, Renewable Electricity and the Grid, The Challenge of Variability, Editors: Boyle, Publisher: Earthscan, ISBN: 9781844074181
Heptonstall P, 2007, A review of electricity cost estimates, UKERC Working Paper, December 2006 (updated May 2007), London, Publisher: UK Energy Research Centre, UKERC/WP/TPA/2007/006
Gross R, Heptonstall P, Blyth W, 2007, Investment in electricity generation, the role of costs, incentives and risks, London, Publisher: UK Energy Research Centre
Gross R, Heptonstall P, Anderson D, et al., 2007, Renewables and the grid: understanding intermittency, Proceedings of ICE, Energy, Vol: 160, Pages: 31-41
Gross R, Heptonstall P, 2006, The problem of intermittency: overrated or understated?, Modern Power Systems, Vol: 26, Pages: 30-31, ISSN: 0260-7840
Gross R, Heptonstall P, Anderson D, et al., 2006, The Costs and Impacts of Intermittency: An assessment of the evidence on the costs and impacts on intermittent generation on the British electricity network, London, Publisher: UK Energy Research Centre
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