End Use Energy Demand Centres Collaborative Projects

The End Use Energy Demand centres are a £30m investment of the RCUK Energy Programme, with over 200 researchers across over 25 institutions running from 2013-2018. In 2015 it was agreed that collaborative work across the six centres on key themes would add extra value to the centres' work. 5 collaborative projects are outlined here, of the type that will run in the remaining funding period (spring '16 - spring '18). The funding is flexible so that the Directors can use it to greatest effect.

1. Analysing SuperMarket Energy Data - will combine the knowledge and skills of three centres CEE, CSEF and i-STUTE to create a clearer picture of supermarket energy use in the UK which can then inform policy and industry on future energy demand decisions.

2. Establishing a research programme on exergy economics - CIED and CIE-Map centre experts will combine to raise awareness and build capacity of this emerging field of research (which focusses on energy that can do work as opposed to all energy expended) with a view to laying foundations for future work in the field.

3. Heat pump and thermal energy storage technologies for industrial energy demand reduction - This project will combine the expertise of three of the centre (CSEF, i-STUTE and CIE-MAP) to consider further the potential contribution of heat pumps, sorption refrigeration and thermal energy storage technologies for energy efficiency and decarbonisation of the industrial sector. The project will also identify future research and development needs for the improvement of the thermoeconomic performance of these technologies.

4. Conceptualising Infrastructures, innovation and demand - DEMAND and CIED are both concerned with innovations in infrastructures and practice, and with the implications of these dynamics for energy and mobility demand. Whilst the two centres approach this topic from different angles, current research - for instance, on city scale innovation, on pathways to district and home heating, on novel institutional/ infrastructural conjunctions (e.g. around electric vehicles), and on peaks and patterns of demand - is generating a series of important cross-cutting questions to do with space, time and scale.

5. Invisible energy policy: new opportunities for intervention - Many different areas of government policy - health, education, defence, welfare and economic policy to name but a few, have tangible consequences for energy demand and for patterns of mobility. DEMAND and CIE-MAP will combine forces to help articulate and identify critical areas of what we describe as 'invisible' energy policy.

The COP-21 talks in Paris in late 2015 have re-emphasised to the world the crucial importance of reducing carbon emissions for future global stability. The projects proposed here tackle challenges that can have a practical and meaningful effect on achieving this goal.

Policy - The six EUED Centres are well connected with government departments and other government and public sector bodies. The example projects specifically address issues around government policy on energy and aim to help policymakers better engage with issues around climate change, looking at them in different ways in order to effect change.

For example, the work on Invisible Energy Policy has the opportunity to break new ground in recognising that all government departments can and should influence energy demand reduction and all policymakers should have an awareness of the issue.

- Impact -the work of the projects will lead to government outputs and policy decisions that will be directly traceable back to the influence of the projects. Particularly statements that refer to the necessity of energy issues being in the plans of government departments beyond the ones normally directly associated with energy. And also with regard to the work done on infrastructures, exergy economics, supermarkets and energy use in industry.

Economy - The EUED Centres have strong ties with many sectors of industry (including heating, cooling, power infrastructure, transport, construction, retail), recognising that reducing energy demand has to be an effective business proposition in order to gain buy-in from industry and business and effect significant change.

The projects will work directly with industrial/retail sector partners (as outlined elsewhere in the proposal) to look at ways to better understand how energy is used and how energy efficiency can be increased. The recommendations and methodologies developed here could be potentially rolled out across industry and retail nationally and internationally and positively effect energy use in these sectors.

- Impact - we hope to eventually see retail and industry sector partners using the new benchmarks signposted by the projects and also for the relevant sectors of industry to seek to implement the energy demand reduction ideas outlined. Also a greater understand of exergy economics will be sought (i.e. the distinction between total energy used and energy used usefully) in industry.

Knowledge - End use energy demand is an emerging and rapidly developing field. The EUED Centre researchers are aware of the need to make findings and information accessible to as broad a range of stakeholders as possible. The proposed projects plan to produce accessible summaries, briefing and web contents alongside academic and technical papers so that the knowledge generated can be distributed as widely as possible. The size and well-connected nature of the centres means that findings and developments can be disseminated to a very wide audience.

- Impact - In addition to a substantial body of policy documents, research summaries and briefings and web content arising from these projects, we also hope to see the projects lead to identification of areas of research for future work to be done.

Society - Society as a whole stands to benefit from reduced carbon emissions and more efficient energy use. This will be reflected in fuel, energy and supermarket prices as well as more efficient transport infrastructures and cleaner air among other things. This work s directly contributes to these goals in a range of ways. The accessible non-technical/non-academic materials produced will add to general public knowledge on the topics and bolster the overall effort to a more energy-savvy populace.

Impact - the impact of dissemination of outputs from the projects will be monitored and the projects will seek to promote findings in the media via institution press offices and the EUED centres coordinator