Draft Workshop Agenda: Accounting for life-cycle emissions

Draft Workshop Agenda:
Accounting for life-cycle emissions
in analysis of future energy systems
Location: London (exact venue tbc)
Date: 13th NOVEMBER 2014 12:00-17:00
Workshop Overview:
This workshop examines approaches that incorporate life-cycle emissions into long-term
energy systems scenario analysis. Energy system models, scenario-based LCA and
environmentally-extended CGE models are all used to examine the potential long-term carbon
impacts arising from the energy system and from the diffusion of new energy technologies.
Each approach has both strengths and limitations in this context. For example, energy system
models such as MARKAL/TIMES enable optimisation of the energy system over long time
horizons, but they lack endogenous representation of emissions associated with the
construction and manufacture of energy technologies, and wider macro-economic feedbacks.
Scenario-based LCA typically ignores important price-effects and interactions in the energy
system. While environmentally-extended CGE models lack the technological detail that is
characteristic of scenario-based LCA or bottom-up energy system models. The system
boundaries and emissions accounting frameworks of the tools differ, and this has implications
for the use and interpretation of the results by policymakers.
This workshop will foster discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of hybrid approaches
that bring these tools together. In particular, the EMInInn team will present the results of a
project that incorporated indirect emissions into the European TIMES model, to assess the
importance of emissions associated with the construction and manufacture of energy
technologies in determining optimal energy system pathways.
EMInInn Project overview
EMInInn is a 3.5-year European project that analyses macro-environmental impacts of
innovations in several sectors of economy: Energy, Transport, Construction, Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) and Waste. It aims at developing an analytical framework
for assessing environmental impacts of established as well as emerging technologies and will
generate contributions for improving EU-policies for a transition towards a more sustainable
Europe and thus contributes to the flagship initiatives for Resource Efficient Europe and the
Innovation Union. Web-page: http://www.emininn.eu/
Draft workshop program:
12.00 – Welcome (Paul Ekins, Professor of Resources and Environmental Policy, UCL)
12.05 – Overview and aims for the day (Will McDowall, Senior Research Associate, UCL) –
different approaches to incorporating indirect emissions into analysis of energy pathways
12.30-13.15 – Lunch
13.15 – 2.45: Session 1
• Anders Arvesen, NTNU – Incorporating indirect emissions into long-term energy
systems analysis: scenario-based LCA and approaches to integrating LCA results into
IAMs.
• Hannah Daly, UCL – Incorporating indirect emissions into a bottom-up partial
equilibrium UK TIMES energy system model: UKERC project (Hannah Daly)
• Will McDowall & Baltazar Solano, UCL – Incorporating indirect emissions into a
European TIMES model: EMInInn project
2.45 – Tea
15.15 – Session 2
• 15.15 Olga Ivanova, TNO – EXIOMOD: a case study of a General Equilibrium
approach to life-cycle analysis of energy futures
• 15.45 – Policy responses – David Joffe, Head of Modelling, Committee on Climate
Change
16.00 – Panel Discussion (Paul Ekins, David Joffe, other policy speaker tbc)
17.00 - Close
Workshop Contacts:
Organiser
Will McDowall
UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources
14 Upper Woburn Place
London; WC1H 0NN, UK
w.mcdowall@ucl.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 20 3108 5992
Daily management:
Vera Freyling
Wuppertal Institute for Climate,
Environment and Energy
Döppersberg 19; 42103 Wuppertal,
GERMANY
vera.freyling@wupperinst.org
Tel: +49 2022492232