Energy saving innovations and economy wide rebound effects

CEP team member Gioele Figus presented at the 15^th International Association for Energy Economics European Conference, which was hosted in Vienna from the 3^rd until the 6^th of September 2017.

Project leader Karen Turner and team member Antonios Katris attended a meeting with the Scottish Government Home Energy Efficiency Programmes (HEEPS) teams and other Scottish Government analysts. The meeting was hosted at the Scottish Government offices in Atlantic Quay, Glasgow but was also attended via video conference by analysts from different offices across Scotland. During the meeting the CEP team members, primarily Karen Turner, presented the main findings of the Impact Accelerator project associated with this EPSRC project but also relevant findings from the EPSRC project itself.

CEP director and project leader Karen Turner and CEP team member Gioele Figus presented at parallel sessions of the 23^rd Annual Conference of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, which took place in Athens, Greece from the 28^th of June until the 1^st of July 2017.

Karen Turner – Making the case for supporting broad energy efficiency programmes: impacts on household incomes and other economic benefits.

Gioele Figus – Can technical improvement in motor vehicles reduce refined fuels use? 

Project leader Karen Turner gave a presentation at the ‘Socio-economic Development, Green Jobs & Skills’ theme session of the ETP Emporium which was held in Glasgow on the 31^st May 2017. The presentation reflected on the multiple benefits that can be achieved through energy efficiency improvements, as was found by the research conducted under this EPSRC-funded project. Moreover, it highlighted the potential impact of £20 million spent by the Scottish Government on energy efficiency improvement measures, based on the findings of the associated Impact Accelerator project.

CEP director Karen Turner along with team members Antonios Katris and Gioele Figus, presented at different sessions of the 2017 edition of the All Energy Conference & Exhibition, which took place in Glasgow on the 10^th and 11^th of May 2017.

Karen Turner – A multiple benefits perspective on energy efficiency.

Gioele Figus – Is there an argument to fund household energy efficiency from the public purse? 

Antonios Katris – £20 million impulse for energy efficiency in Scotland: what’s the impact? 

Gioele Figus – Centre for Energy Policy: How policy shapes markets in energy goods and services.

Karen Turner presented during the Energy Technology Partnership – Scottish Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association meeting on ‘Energy storage in a changing world’, which took place in Edinburgh on the 5^th April 2017.

CEP director Karen Turner and team members Antonios Katris and Gioele Figus attended a meeting with analysts of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), at the BEIS offices in London on the 16^th March 2017. During the meeting Karen Turner presented on how CGE models can be used to study the potential multiple economy-wide benefits of increased residential and industrial energy efficiency.

Karen Turner gave a presentation at the 10^th Energy Scotland Conference organised by the Scottish Energy Association. The conference was held at the Technology and Innovation Centre in Glasgow on the 23^rd February 2017. Her talk discussed the potential multiple benefits of energy efficiency along with the different approaches that can be employed to achieve a society-wide engagement of energy policies.

Morning workshop

• Karen Turner – ‘Energy efficiency: international spillover and rebound effects’ [PDF]
• Kim Swales – ‘Thoughts on using national or international CGE approaches’ [PDF]

Afternoon workshop

• Karen Turner – ‘Can we decouple economic expansion and rebound effects?’ [PDF]
• Fiona Riddoch – ‘Energy efficiency policy: the different approaches’ [PDF]
• Gioele Figus – ‘Is there an argument to fund household energy efficiency from the public purse?’ [PDF]”

Members of the CEP team attended the 17^th of November 2016 meeting of the Scottish Parliament cross party group on Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (SPREEE). The meeting focused on energy efficiency as a national infrastructure. At the meeting Karen Turner gave a keynote highlighting that the adoption of energy efficiency measures delivers a multitude of benefits derived from the supported expansion of the economy. Moreover, it was discussed how increased energy efficiency can aid in mitigating fuel as well as absolute poverty in low income households and also facilitate achieving reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and increased security of the energy supply system.

On the 9^th November 2016 the Centre for Energy Policy organised a workshop on linking economic, e.g. CGE the model that was used for this EPSRC-funded project, with energy systems models (e.g. TIMES). During the workshop a number of invited speakers, both from domestic and international institutions, discussed the current experience on linking these two types of models, the challenges and crucially the potential benefits to policymakers from the implementation of such a link. Grant Allan, co-investigator of this EPSRC-funded project, chaired the workshop and also gave the opening presentation while project leader Karen Turner presented the current situation regarding macroeconomic modelling. Check out Grant Allan’s presentation and Karen Turner’s presentation.

As part of the workshop the participants discussed a number of topic related to the link between economic and energy systems models, ranging from the potential policy objectives that can be met using linked models to practical data requirements and issues and how a linked model could be utilised to study the impact of introducing new technologies. The conclusions of these discussions were used as the basis for an occasional paper discussing the topic of the link between CGE and TIMES models. Read the paper.

Between September and November 2016 the Centre For Energy Policy organised a series of three workshops, forming the Smart Energy Forum (SEF). SEF offered the opportunity to industrial practitioners (people who are actively engaged in the implementation of innovative energy-related technologies) to discuss on the future of the energy market. The objective of SEF is to provide input to the Scottish Energy Strategy which was under development at the time.

Project leader Karen Turner gave a presentation during the second workshop of the series, which took place on the 7^th October 2016. Her presentation provided an insight on the potential multiple benefits from the introduction of energy efficiency improvement measures, as has been found to be the case from the research conducted under this EPSRC-funded project, while highlighting the potential impact of introducing new energy or energy-related technologies. Check out the presentation.

Project leader Karen Turner gave a presentation at the ‘Consumers, Economics and Energy Systems’ workshop in Dublin on the 17th of October 2016. The presentation highlighted the potential multiple and long-lasting socio-economic benefits of improving residential energy efficiency while reflecting on the potential impact of funding the improvements through increased taxation or the re-allocation of existing funds.

The director of the Centre for Energy Policy, Karen Turner, supported a press release of the Existing Homes Alliance issued on the 12^th September 2016, by commenting on the potential for economic stimulus and alleviation of fuel poverty that my realised via improving the energy efficiency of existing residential buildings. Read the press release.

The members of the Centre for Energy Policy team Antonios Katris, Gioele Figus and Oluwafisayo Alabi presented at plenary sessions of the 45^th conference of the Regional Science Association International – British and Irish Section, which took place in Newquay, Cornwall from the 30^th August until the 1^st September 2016. The presentations can be found below.

Antonios Katris – The benefits of using Regional Input Output tables and the importance of region-specific satellite emissions data.

Gioele Figus – Energy efficiency, fuel poverty and rebound: multiple benefits trade-off and asymmetries.

Oluwafisayo Alabi – Potential Carbon Multiplier Effects or Re-spending decisions following increased energy efficiency: A tool for assessing regional carbon/energy implications of spending decisions.

The team of CEP organised an event at the Energy Saving Trust offices in London, following their previous event in Edinburgh on the 26 June 2016. The London event consisted of two sections and the presentations provided an overview of the findings of this EPSRC project, discussing potential ways in which CEP and EST could collaborate in the future. To find out more have a look at the slides from the first section and from the second section.

The CEP team organised an event for the Energy Saving Trust at their offices in Edinburgh, following an expressed interest on the work conducted as part of this EPSRC project. This event covered, to differing extents, work across all WP, but with particular focus on results and underlying methods from WP2. Download the presentation “Reconsindering rebound effects” [PDF 6.03 MB].

Karen Turner gave a presentation at the UKLPG Annual Conference on the work conducted under Work Package 1 and the main focus was on how we can reduce the rebound associated with improved energy efficiency measures, while retaining the macroeconomic benefits. It was shown that shifting our thinking towards improving the energy efficiency of  delivering specific services, rather than specific activities, could lead to the decoupling of rebound  and macroeconomic benefits.

Karen Turner chaired the Scotland Policy Conference Keynote Seminar on ‘Next steps for renewable energy in Scotland – funding, development and policy priorities‘. Karen made opening remarks on ‘Renewables in Scotland – assessing challenges and opportunities‘.

Members of the Centre for Energy Policy team, involved with this EPSRC project, presented at the All Energy conference and exhibition that took place in Glasgow on the 4^th and 5^th of May 2016. Karen Turner presented on the ‘Sustainable Transport’ session while Gioele Figus’ presentation was featured on the ‘Business Energy Efficiency Seminar Theatre’. At the same time both Gioele Figus and Antonios Katris had posters included in the conference’s poster session.

Presentations

Karen Turner – Reducing rebound without sacrificing macroeconomic benefits of increased energy efficiency in public transport provision

Gioele Figus – Increased energy efficiency in Scottish households: trading-off economic benefits and energy rebound effect

Posters

Gioele Figus – Asymetric rebound effects across different household income groups

Antonios Katris – Multiplier analysis of re-spending rebound effects

The Centre for Energy Policy along with the Fraser of Allander Institute hosted an event titled “Economy-wide Rebound. Understanding economy-wide impacts of increased energy efficiency”. The event was part of the ‘Engage with Strathclyde’ week and was focused on our EPSRC funded project ‘Energy Saving Innovations and Economy-Wide Rebound Effects’. The event as a whole was designed to promote discussion on our EPSRC project, identifying both areas for exploration and possible new research partners. Therefore the number of attendees, who were mainly policymakers and academics, was limited by design in order to promote discussions between all the participating parties. Presentations were given by the members of the Centre for Energy Policy team, featuring the key findings of the project up to this date as well as potential ways that the developed methodologies could be used on Scottish case studies. Karen Turner provided an overview of the project, the findings of the different work packages and the steps that will take place in the next months. Oluwafisayo Alabi and Antonios Katris discussed how a Carbon Saving Multiplier could be used to study and report rebound effects as well as how the methodology could be applied on sectors within Scotland. Finally Gioele Figus explained how understanding the rebound effects can help in reducing fuel poverty.

Karen Turner – Overview of EPSRC project

Oluwafisayo Alabi and Antonios Katris – Using multipliers to study rebound effects

Gioele Figus – Can the rebound effect reduce fuel poverty?

On the 22nd of March 2016 Karen Turner presented at the KAPSARC research workshop in London. Her presentation titled ‘Energy Efficiency, Rebound and Societal Welfare’ featured the latest findings from all the working packages of the project (but with particular focus on WP1 arguments) along general information on the methods used.

The 7th and 8th March saw the launch of the Demand-Side Energy Trilemma briefing in Glasgow and London.  The London event was hosted at the House of Commons by Baroness Worthington and featured presentations from Professor Turner (University of Strathclyde), Ian Marchant (Dunelm Energy) and Dr Stuart Galloway (University of Strathclyde).

For more information on our proposal for an Energy Demand Trilemma, please download our briefing document.

Event report: Demand-Side Energy Trilemma  launched at House of Commons and University of Strathclyde.

The project team attended the launch of the Scottish TIMES model. During the launch event there was interaction between the project team and the team responsible for TIMES leading to discussions on the role that CGE could play in informing key parameters required to run accurate simulations using TIMES and to run comparative simulations.

Professor Karen Turner gave an opening presentation at this event which was jointly hosted by the Scottish Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association and the Centre for Energy Policy at the University of Strathclyde. The presentation featured a general outlook of this EPSRC-funded project as well as findings from WP1.

On 29 September 2015, Karen Turner gave a presentation on ‘The Economic Benefits of Increased Household Energy Efficiency Across the UK’ at a Holyrood Policy event on Fuel Poverty. This talk aimed to elaborate on the findings from the earlier work on Work Package 4 that involves collaborative input from Lisa Ryan and Ken Gillingham.

Project leader Karen Turner along with the members of the Centre for Energy Policy team Antonios Katris and Gioele Figus presented at plenary and poster sessions of the 11^th International Conference of the European Society for Ecological Economics, which took place in Leeds, West Yorkshire from the 30^th June until the 3^rd July 2015. The presentations and the poster can be found below.

Karen Turner – International spillover and rebound effects from increased energy efficiency in Germany.

Antonios Katris – Carbon ‘hotspots’ in global supply chains: an inter-regional input-output analysis.

Gioele Figus – Increased households energy efficiency: can it boost the Scottish economy? 

The project team held a local stakeholder group meeting at the offices of the Scottish Government in Glasgow on 23 June 2015. On the same day, Karen Turner presented insights into some initial project work that included findings from Work Package 1, 4 and 5 in a presentation entitled ‘Industrial Energy Efficiency and Productivity-led Growth’ [PDF 1.59MB]. This event was co-organised by Strathclyde’s Centre for Energy Policy (CEP) as well as the ClimateXChange team, Scotland’s centre of expertise on climate change which provides research, advice and analysis service to Scottish Government policy teams and associated public agencies. The meeting was attended by colleagues from Scottish energy policy, industry and research communities.

Other speakers were drawn from both Scottish and international research communities and included Ken Gillingham, Assistant Professor of Economics at Yale University; Brita Bye, Senior Researcher at Statistics Norway; and Lisa Ryan, Senior Power Systems Researcher at the University College Dublin. All three speakers visited the project team during June 2015 to present at the CEP Energy Efficiency event, with Ken Gillingham and Brita Bye also giving academic seminars at Strathclyde the following day that were organised by the project team and the Fraser of Allander Institute. Ken stayed as a CEP visitor for the full week and engaged with the project leader and team on work on Work Package 4.a.

Project leader Karen Turner gave a presentation on ‘Economic benefits of energy efficiency and rebound effects?’ [PDF 1.81 MB] on 21 April 2015. This talk featured at an event organised by the University of Strathclyde’s Centre for Energy Policy (CEP) entitled

‘Emissions, Cleaner Energy Generation and Energy Efficiency: Different perspectives of EU 20-20-20’. The focus of this workshop was largely policy-orientated, and was attended by colleagues from Scottish Energy Policy and other relevant research communities. Karen’s presentation aimed to introduce the audience to a number of key issues that are currently being considered in the ‘Energy saving innovations and economy wide rebound effects’ project.

Karen Turner presented on ‘Reducing rebound without sacrificing macroeconomic benefits of increased energy efficiency’ at the IAEE Conference in Bergen‘. Antonios Katris also presented in a plenary at the same conference on ‘Indirect rebound involving embodied energy use in respending decisions‘. Gioele Figus presented a poster.

On 23rd November 2015, Karen Turner presented the work and results from WP1 under the working title ‘Reducing rebound without sacrificing macroeconomic benefits?’  at an event hosted by Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin ‘UCD Energy Institute and Electricity Research Centre Symposium’. She also gave a similar presentation to an internal seminar at at UCL on 17 November.

Karen Turner gave an invited keynote presentation at the first Energy Economics Iberian Conference, EEIC|CIEE.

This inaugural conference brought together the newly created Associação Portuguesa de Economia da Energia (APEEN) and the Asociación Española para la Economía Energética (AEEE). Taking place on February 4 and 5, 2016, in Lisbon, Portugal; it was hosted by Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa (ISEL) in cooperation with the University of Aveiro.

Karen gave one of three keynote addresses, drawing on the EPSRC ‘Energy Saving Innovations and Economy-Wide Rebound Effects’ project under the title ‘Beyond direct rebound: too complex a story for a single measure.

Slides from Karen Turner’s EEIC keynote presentation.

An article by Karen Turner and Fiona Riddoch on the multiple potential socio-economic benefits of the introduction of improved energy efficiency measures, based on the WP4 work led by Karen Turner and Gioele Figus, has been featured in The Herald on the 13th of October 2016. A slightly altered version of the article was published on the Scottish Construction Now website.

Karen Turner appeared on ‘Scotland 2016’ BBC news show discussing how gas use in petrochemical production is key in the shale gas/fracking debate. This has been particularly relevant in shaping the debate over the implications of shipments of shale gas fracked in the US and arriving in Scotland, from late September, for use in the petrochemical industry at Grangemouth in the east central belt. Professor Turner also wrote a blog post on the topic with Prof Zoe Shipton.

In the June 2015 Thematic Issue Number 49, the EU news service published a briefing entitled ‘Household energy efficiency could help boost the economy’ that includes previous work from the ‘Energy saving innovations and economy wide rebound effects’ project. Published in ‘The Science for Environment Policy’, the paper analyses how household energy efficiency could help boost the economy by exploring the links between increased energy efficiency of UK households, and the wider UK economy using ‘general equilibrium’ modelling.

In July 2015, project leader Prof Karen Turner wrote a blog post on ‘How Scotland could make the most of its energy efficiency policies (and why the rebound effect could be a good thing’. The article, published by the CIED and Sussex Energy Group’s blog, focused on the University of Strathclyde’s Centre for Energy Policy (CEP) event that was run by the Strathclyde EUED team and including presentation of early results.