This project aims to model demand-side flexibility coming from aggregation of a large number of residential and small and medium-size commercial end-users in the distribution network (DN). The algorithms developed through this project will facilitate more flexible operation of the DN by assessing the time varying capacity available from flexible loads, in response to flexible services currently procured by the distribution system operator (DSO), namely: Sustain, Secure, Dynamic and Restore. The aggregate flexibility will be described as the amount of available capacity and its duration, as a result of aggregating individual loads with different operating modes, start times, maximum deferral times, etc., driven by the end-users' daily behaviour and constrained by their comfort. Such flexibility profiling, corresponding to that of larger flexible resources already employed in practice (e.g., distributed generators or storage), will make provision of multiple flexible services accessible to small and medium-size end-users. This will result in increased flexibility of the DN as a whole. Furthermore, harnessing flexibility potential of residential and commercial users would have significant environmental implications, as these contribute to a large share to both, electrical usage and global greenhouse gas emissions. The findings of the project could be further complemented with smart meter data to develop tariffs and incentives for residential and commercial users, supporting more coordinated procurement of flexibility by reducing uncertainty of efficiency and outcome of the demand response (DR) programmes. The main beneficiaries of the research would be DSOs, aggregators and other DR responsible parties at the DN level. The question of flexibility modelling is not only important for reporting DR potential at the demand side (commonly, an aggregator's role), but also for more confident estimation of the outcome of DR programmes, tariff design and flexibility assessment, which are highly relevant to DSOs. One of the main benefits for DSOs brought by this project would be in supporting decision making when investing into incentives and infrastructure allowing network-wide control of flexible loads.

This project is associated with the EPSRC Solar Energy Hub. It sets out the scientific, technical and socio-economic grand challenge of wide scale integration of photovoltaic systems (PV) into electric power systems with particular focus on the UK. This challenge is interdisciplinary and the research required to address it requires a range of interdisciplinary skills. The academic team comprises internationally recognised experts in electrical power systems, social sciences, environmental and techno-economic assessment, PV materials and devices from the Universities of Manchester, Sheffield, Loughborough and Oxford Brookes. Solar PV plays a modest role in the UK Pathways to 2050 articulated by DECC. Although the Government's feed-in tariff programme has led to a total PV installed capacity (for up to 50kW installations) exceeding 1.2GW, equivalent to 1.6% of the total installed generation capacity in Great Britain, its current trend falls short from the DECC trajectories. To enhance the role of PV this research examines the UK electricity system of 2050, including generation sources and networks, in which solar PV is assumed to play a significant role. It aims to investigate the drivers and opportunities to facilitate an increase in the role of solar energy in the UK energy futures. It will develop a range of future energy scenarios out to 2050. The energy scenarios will be informed and driven by PV stakeholders' (customers, developers, policy advisors, material scientists) perceptions and perspectives of solar PV as a serious player in energy supply in the UK. The proposal also has a wider interest in solar PV on a global scale with particular focus on the role that UK industry could play in providing innovative PV technologies to lead global uptake of solar PV. In the move to decarbonise electricity supply globally, it is likely that more and more reliance will have to be placed on renewable energy sources, with solar PV playing a major role. Harnessing this ubiquitous resource in a manner that ensures it delivers carbon savings in a cost-effective and efficient manner remains one of the key challenges to its widespread adoption as a serious contender in global energy supply. This project will evaluate with key stakeholders their vision of the "PV future", and via the construction of potential future PV scenarios, will result in a comparative analysis of the impacts and benefits of these futures, taking into account: (i) The greenhouse gas savings and wider environmental impacts of the PV implementation (ii) Life cycle assessment of costs of implementation from the perspective of different stakeholders such as utilities, government, users (iii) The infrastructure and energy systems implications of implementation (iv) The socio-economic impacts of implementation, including on fuel poverty, job creation etc We propose the investigation and articulation of the changes in power system design and operation to accommodate wide scale penetration of PV. This project aims to maximize the contribution of PV to UK renewable energy and carbon reduction targets by strategically assessing the systems level challenges that are encountered with adventurous levels of PV penetration in the UK energy system. The expertise of the group will evaluate the challenges: (i) for the electrical system (ii) for material/resource availability (iii) of cost reduction (iv) of maximizing life-cycle carbon reductions (v) of delivering social benefits The work will therefore go beyond the idea of optimizing to make solar energy more cost competitive; considering instead the whole-life cycle sustainability (economic, environmental and social) of different PV options, how they could be accommodated in the evolving UK energy system and identifying relevant barriers and obstacles at an early stage. This requires engagement with scientists in the hub, DNO's, regulators and manufacturers, but also with existing and potential PV users.

The UK has a commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by 2050 relative to 1990 levels. While the potential role of energy storage to support integration of RES and help meet these challenging targets is well recognised, development of suitable frameworks that could facilitate energy storage rollout is still lacking. This is due to multiple factors that can be reflected in relevant Research Challenges that this project aims to address. These include: - An adequate understanding of commercial, regulatory, and institutional settings that can facilitate storage deployment; - Gaining insights into the true value streams that individual storage devices and coordinated portfolios of different technologies can generate for different parties across different markets; - Modelling interactions and maximising synergies among different energy vectors, and in particular heat and gas besides electricity, in order to unlock the flexibility of multi-energy forms of storage; - Developing suitable techno-economic models that can cater for the relevant operational and investment uncertainties that affect storage operators and owners and properly consider network and market constraints; - Understanding of wider impacts and social responses of different storage technologies, including public perceptions and environmental impacts. Our Vision is to develop a comprehensive framework, supported by innovative techno-economic modelling techniques capable to deal with different types of operational and planning uncertainties as well as network constraints, aimed at fostering sustainable business cases for different types of energy storage. Our analyses will assess how individual energy storage devices or aggregated portfolios of devices connected to different network levels can provide multiple simultaneous steady-state, dynamic services and power quality services and assess the relevant impact and value arising from these services for different market parties. We will consider explicitly multi-energy forms of storage, and in particular different types of electrical energy storage and thermal energy storage technologies, as well as innovative technologies such as power-to-gas. Our models will be tested in various technical, commercial and regulatory environments and taking into account socio-economic and environmental aspects, including public perceptions to different technologies. The MY-STORE project will strategically supplement the current research and bring a new perspective by providing much broader context, understanding and responses to the wide-scale deployment of energy storage. Our Ambition is to be the first in the world to provide such a comprehensive framework that can inform policy debates and the business community on the value and role of any storage technology in the transition towards more sustainable energy networks. Notwithstanding the generality of the framework put forward, the studies will focus on the UK situation, with time horizons from short to medium term (around 2035) and then opening up to 2050 and beyond. In fact, part of our ambitious plan is to bring out the value and role of energy storage and demonstrate how it could be possible to build business cases already in the shorter term and even for technologies that are commercially available today (e.g., thermal energy storage and different types of batteries), and then to facilitate development of appropriate regulatory and market environments for wider scale storage deployment (and possibly based on new technologies) to deal with the challenges of developing a truly low-carbon energy system. Our research will put the UK at the international forefront in this important field and provide a secure platform for future developments, also based on close collaboration with our industrial partners which represent a variety of established and emerging multi-energy storage technologies that are being already deployed or trialled in the UK.

Rapid transformation of Power Networks is only possible if industry can recruit highly trained individuals with the skills to engage in R&D that will drive innovation. The EPSRC CDT in Power Networks at the University of Manchester will educate and train high quality PhD students with the technical, scientific, managerial and personal skills needed by the Power Networks sector. Prof. Peter Crossley, whose experience includes leadership of the Joule Centre, will lead the CDT. This CDT is multidisciplinary with PhD students located in the Faculties of Engineering & Physical Science and Humanities. All students will first register on a "Power Networks" Postgraduate Diploma; when successfully completed, students will transfer to a PhD degree and their research will be undertaken in one or more Schools within these Faculties. During their PhD studies, students will also be required to expand their knowledge in topics related to the management, design and operation of power networks. Using the support of our industrial partners, students will engage in policy debates, deliver research presentations, undertake outreach activities and further their career development via internships. The CDT will deliver world class research and training, focused on the UK's need to transform conventional power networks into flexible smart grids that reliably, efficiently and economically transport low-carbon electrical energy from generators to consumers. Specific areas of research are: - Electrical power network design, operation and management The rapidly increasing need to integrate renewable energy into power networks poses numerous challenges, particularly cyclical and stochastic intermittency. This is further complicated by future proof buildings, decarbonisation of heat and transport, and other innovations that will change electrical demand. Existing Power Networks include a mixture of old and new plant, some of which is beyond design life. This may not be a problem at historical loading levels, but future visions involve increased power densities and changes in primary and secondary substation topology. Research on asset management and life-time extension is required to provide economical and reliable solutions to these issues. Integration of DC interties and Power Electronics within networks has been identified as key enabling technologies. Therefore projects on HVDC, power electronics, intermittent generation, energy storage, dynamic demand, intelligent protection and control and the use of data provided by smart meters and local/wide-area monitoring systems are required. - Power Network Operation, Planning and Governance Transmission and Distribution Operating Companies need projects on planning processes that co-ordinates land-use with other infrastructures. Projects include planning uncertainty and complexity, integration of modelling with geographical information systems, stakeholder behaviour, decision modelling and the impact of resource allocation and operating lifecycles. Projects on smart operational control strategies can simplify network planning and reduce the cost of implementing: demand response; combined heat and power; and district heating. - Changes to the pattern of energy demands and their effect on the power network Climate change will have an adverse effect on network reliability and projects are required to help network companies economically manage the electrification of heating, cooling and transport. Projects are also required on the interaction between energy vectors and network infrastructure with multiple uncertainties. - Cross cutting technologies Research in Mathematics and Management on stochastic dynamic optimisation techniques can be used to underpin projects on heat and electrical energy storage under uncertain price and supply conditions. Projects using a cognitive lens to uncover how large infrastructure projects can be delivered through meta-organisations are also required.

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2018 highlighted the need for urgent, transformative change, on an unprecedented scale, if global warming is to be restricted to 1.5C. The challenge of reaching an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050 represents a huge technological, engineering, policy and societal challenge for the next 30 years. This is a huge challenge for the transport sector, which accounts for over a quarter of UK domestic greenhouse gas emissions and has a flat emissions profile over recent years. The DecarboN8 project will develop a new network of researchers, working closely with industry and government, capable of designing solutions which can be deployed rapidly and at scale. It will develop answers to questions such as: 1) How can different places be rapidly switched to electromobility for personal travel? How do decisions on the private fleet interact with the quite different decarbonisation strategies for heavy vehicles? This requires integrating understanding of the changing carbon impacts of these options with knowledge on how energy systems work and are regulated with the operational realities of transport systems and their regulatory environment; and 2) What is the right balance between infrastructure expansion, intelligent system management and demand management? Will the embodied carbon emissions of major new infrastructure offset gains from improved flows and could these be delivered in other ways through technology? If so, how quickly could this happen, what are the societal implications and how will this impact on the resilience of our systems? The answer to these questions is unlikely to the same everywhere in the UK but little attention is paid to where the answers might be different and why. Coupled with boundaries between local government areas, transport network providers (road and rail in particular) and service operators there is potential for a lack of joined up approaches and stranded investments in ineffective technologies. The DecarboN8 network is led by the eight most research intensive Universities across the North of England (Durham, Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield and York) who will work with local, regional and national stakeholders to create an integrated test and research environment across the North in which national and international researchers can study the decarbonisation challenge at these different scales. The DecarboN8 network is organised across four integrated research themes (carbon pathways, social acceptance and societal readiness, future transport fuels and fuelling, digitisation, demand and infrastructure). These themes form the structure for a series of twelve research workshops which will bring new research interests together to better understand the specific challenges of the transport sector and then to work together on integrating solutions. The approach will incorporate throughout an emphasis on working with real world problems in 'places' to develop knowledge which is situated in a range of contexts. £400k of research funding will be available for the development of new collaborations, particularly for early career researchers. We will distribute this in a fair, open and transparent manner to promote excellent research. The network will help develop a more integrated environment for the development, testing and rapid deployment of solutions through activities including identifying and classifying data sources, holding innovation translation events, policy discussion forums and major events to highlight the opportunities and innovations. The research will involve industry and government stakeholders and citizens throughout to ensure the research outcomes meet the ambitions of the network of accelerating the rapid decarbonisation of transport.