The UK's Energy Supply: Security or Independence?

Abstract

This evidence is presented to the Select Committee to provide a perspective in terms of the threats, vulnerability and consequences of the UK Energy Supply System within a global-national context characterized by unprecedented uncertainties and increasingly complex intertwines. This contribution is based upon the ACEGES project (www.aceges.org). ACEGES stands for Agent-based Computational Economics of the Global Energy System. The ACEGES models the energy demand and supply of 216 countries. The aim is not to present another set of quantifications for policymaking, as there are a number of reports and papers published in recent years. Rather the aim is to provide a coherent overview of i) the assumptions of the energy models used to produce the published quantifications and ii) the approach used to develop energy scenarios for the assessment of the UK’s Energy Supply. It is evident today that the long-term sustainability of the UK’s energy system is under acute strain. Therefore the comments that follow mainly deal with the need to enhance:

a. The existing energy models to assess the sensitivity of the UK’s energy supply.

b. The way of developing multidimensional global-national continuous scenarios for long-term assessment of the resilient of the UK energy system to international events.

Keywords: UK Energy Security, ACEGES, UK Parliament, Energy and Climate Change Select Committee