The Green Edge Reports Roundup, Sep-23: Part Two - Sectors
Continuing with our selection of reports and other publications from this month’s reading list.
Part Two of our crop of green reports from this months reading list. Also see Part One - General.
As usual, you can find all thes reports and more in our searchable reports list on The Green Edge Data Portal.
Energy
Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS)
The Ability of BECCS to Generate Negative Emissions
Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, August 2023.
Both the Climate Change Committee and the National Infrastructure Commission recognise the importance of CCS as a part of the UK’s net zero plan, and it’s allocated a capability to remove initially 5mt/year rising to 23mt/year. Future reports will need to build on this initial one as the principle and practice move full evaluation of current schemes (e.g. Drax).
Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage
Carbon Capture and Storage Association Workforce and Skills Position Paper
Carbon Capture and Storage Association, July 2023.
The momentum behind CCSA is building with 12 clusters around the UK and the potential for 70,000 additional jobs and protecting a further 77,000 jobs. This report adds some real weight behind what the Green Jobs Taskforce identified back in 2021. Since then we have seen four clusters being fast tracked and being central to both overall UK progress towards net zero, and the economic growth and development of several regions.
Digital and AI
Using digital and AI to meet the energy sector’s net zero challenge
McKinsey & Co, September 2023.
A script from three discussions with RES, Octopus Energy and IBM around four of the biggest shifts: technology pilots to true transformation; energy provider to software provider; data silos to data sharing ecosystems; and corporate transformation to community transformation. Just as the auto industry has become increasingly a software business, so is the move towards net zero which has a major skills implication and highlighting the baseline level of digital capability required across nearly all green roles.
Future Energy Scenarios
Future Energy Scenarios
National Grid, July 2023.
This is a complex and well-developed document that takes us through four scenarios and a series of major messages. The key messages cover policy and delivery, consumer and digitalisation, markets and flexibility, and, infrastructure and whole energy system, then each of these breaks down into three more. A dependency on skills is not voiced here but needs to be developed and inform the national skills thinking around power and energy.
Gas
People and Planet Plan Update 2022
Centrica, 2023.
Two highlights for us in this annual update by Centrica: the apprenticeship numbers and targets – 1000+ currently and 3,500 by 2030; and the lack of demand for both EVs and heat pumps leading to targets being missed. The heat pump miss is very understandable, but the EV one is more difficult to do so. Annual corporate reports are useful as we can see the importance of corporate momentum. It would be good to see how the skills base of Centrica is adjusting to meet full net zero requirements and targets.
Photovoltaics
Distributed photovoltaics provides key benefits for a highly renewable European energy systems
Applied Energy, July 2023.
The pressure on almost all electricity grids is growing by the day as the points of energy supply and consumption are changing, and so the use of PV (local micro-generation schemes) has a potential additional benefit from their installation to create local points of supply. How this then feeds into the complexity of manpower requirements for the development of the National Grid across the UK needs to be picked up as it could buy small amounts of time in some geographies (perhaps low population density areas).
Energy Storage
Powering up the UK battery industry
Green Alliance, September 2023.
A useful interim report while the UK Government is due to publish its own battery strategy shortly. Three messages come across for us: the jobs dependency written across all aspects of the battery strategy and the future of the auto industry relies on having a successful delivery of batteries (and its whole supply chain); success of batteries in the UK requires skills across a huge range of occupations from marine engineering to materials science to chemical processing before we even get to battery manufacture and their recycling; and batteries (energy storage devices) are a critical technology to be fully mastered, having been successful progressed by Faraday Battery Challenge and the Advanced Propulsion Centre in the UK.
Large-scale electricity storage
The Royal Society, September 2023.
With extensive large-scale electricity storage both wind and solar can meet the bulk of the UK’s energy needs of 570 Twh per year. Storage would be able to hold 10.5-17.5% of annual demand. What this means for skills and employment, and their location isn’t touched on here but needs tackling.
Virtual Power Plants
Virtual Power Plants, Real Benefits. How aggregating distributed energy resources can benefit communities, society, and the grid
VP3 and Rocky Mountain Institute, January 2023.
VPPs have a real benefit by reducing the cost of the generation and grid investment, and they offer a truly innovative addition to the big fossil fuel transition to potential big renewables. Key is for VPP to built into the national power and networks planning at all levels, and this needs to be reflected in local plans too as they need local capabilities and collective action.
General
Net Zero Roadmap: A Global Pathway to Keep the 1.5°C Goal in Reach
International Energy Agency, September 2023.
A detailed and thorough annual update which has one major conclusion: good progress but must go farther, faster. The clear and impressive progress made across energy generation is leading the way, and we are now entering a series of more difficult tasks that mean difficult political and citizen choices. The IEA helps to chart how this difficult territory can be managed. Implicit are the skills and capabilities needed to make these plans a reality. We observe that delays only means making the peaks of tasks to progress net zero higher, more costly and difficult to resource: we must find a way for smoothing the net zero challenge peaks. A few key milestones for the global electricity transition to register: triple renewables by 2030; double grid investment by 2030; phase-out coal by 2040; and, double nuclear by 2050. These are big challenges.
Accelerating Action: Closing the green growth gap
Oxford Economics for Energy UK, September 2023.
This is one of the five reports Energy UK have recently produced on the Clean Growth Gap. Taken together they provide a powerful set of policies the energy industry believes would capitalise on what has been achieved to-date.
US Energy and Employment Report 2023
US Department of Energy, 2023.
This report makes for instructive reading and shows how when clean energy (in all of its forms) is supported, jobs are created (3.1mn clean energy jobs in the US in 2022, up by 114,000 since 2021, and now 40% of all energy jobs, plus 2.2mn jobs in energy efficiency). When we look at the sub-sectors of clean energy we find widespread double-digit growth in clean vehicles, battery vehicles, offshore wind, grid modernisation, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and natural gas vehicles. It would be good to have an integrated report in the UK of this type.
Hydrogen
Global Hydrogen Review 2023
International Energy Agency, September 2023.
Projects seeking progressing hydrogen abound but projects with full funding is less widely spread. Hydrogen lies at the heart of the net zero transition for chemicals, refining, steel etc. which largely determines the map of projects across Europe, and the world. In the UK, the main hydrogen projects are clustered around major petrochemical sites and feature strongly alongside CCUS.
Retrofit & Heat Pumps
Automating heat pump flexibility: results from a pilot
Nesta and Centre for Net Zero – Heatflex UK, September 2023.
This report suggests we are all going have all going to have to change how we manage our energy use at home While this can be automated, we have to see ourselves as an active part of the energy system in managing our demand and, ideally, being a point of storage and supply at different times. Together, this intelligent approach to demand management will reduce the pressure on the national grid.
Coming in from the cold: heat pump efficiency at lower temperatures
Joule, August 2023.
There’s a great chart in this paper which brings together sales per thousand households in a country against the average January temperature. A simple message: countries with low January temperature have some of the highest uptake of heat pumps.
Agriculture
Sowing resilience: Unlocking the potential for regenerative farming
Demos, September 2023.
The interesting feature for us in this report is the peer-to-peer learning, knowledge and skills development proposed to help farmers refine their farming practices. It would be good to see the numbers behind this type of scheme, how it can be scaled and how quickly it could be mobilised to have an impact. We wonder in which other professions such a peer-to-peer approach might work well, and we’d suggest architects and design might be one where it would be a good place to start.
Farming at The Sweet Spot: How farming with nature can make you happier, healthier, and wealthier
Nature Friendly Farming Network and The Wildlife Trusts, July 2023.
A useful summary of the issues developing across farming and how the various conflicting agendas can work and be shown to work. Suggests to us there is quite a big mindset shift going on here, and as the transition progresses there will be increasing employment opportunities.
Communicating Change: A briefing on land use and agriculture
Just Transition Commission, September 2023.
There are multiple challenges along the path of transition to net zero, and this report is about learning about how messages are being heard by communities who will have to make a series of changes. To us it highlights a skillset required for net zero: the ability to build strong engagement with communities and stakeholders impacted by net zero and expected to make some significant changes, and then work with them in a “search conference” style to reach conclusions and actions. These skills are also needed within organisations and to work across communities.
Farmer First 2022 Sustainability Report
AGCO, 2023.
We all know agriculture is changing and that technology is playing a major role, here from Agco Corporation which designs, manufactures, and distributes agricultural machinery for precision agriculture. Two messages for us: the retrofit of the latest technology into existing pieces of equipment (part circular thinking, part overcoming the cost of full equipment replacement); and the need to combine the latest skills with legacy ones in order to achieve successful technology integrations.
Built Environment
Mission Retrofit: The Building Mission Zero
Mission Zero Coalition, September 2023.
Another powerful report from the Mission Zero Coalition and this is really the first part, focusing on the existing stock, while a second one will focus on the future building stock. One of the big policy ideas in this report, which truly draws upon the whole built environment community, is the establishment of a National Retrofit Delivery Agency which would be charged to develop an appropriate strategy and programme which needs to work through a series of phases to align capabilities, capacity, and demand. This new body would be at the centre of the skills thinking going ahead and could build on the Green Jobs Delivery Group work.
Scotland’s Retrofit Workforce: A Briefing on the Built Environment and Construction
Just Transition Commission, Scotland, September 2023.
A few big messages here: the construction industry must diversify, public sector procurement is critical, overall national political leadership is needed, education is central (positioned as a national utility), and there is a need for new funding streams. We are a little surprised that Local Area Energy Plans did not get a mention and the potential harnessing of the public building estate to make new heating schemes financially viable. On funding, we are seeing the emergence of multiple schemes being offered by the major banks. Again, we see the need for a systems approach to the skills for retrofitting i.e. the need to move beyond the technical retrofit task and to look across the whole retrofit system and view its skills needs.
Circular Economy
An overview of Europe’s repair sector
European Environment Agency, November 2022.
The repair sector is now an established part of the circular economy employment - in excess of 150,000 across Europe. This report focuses on three parts of it: electrical and electronic, clothing, and furniture. For each sector, it drops into occupations (using ISCO-08 3-digit codes), and one message that comes out is that skills are a potential barrier here both to effect repairs and also to make replacement parts. As we might expect, for electrical and electronics 80% of the roles are electrically based, and in the UK this is at a time when the demand for electricians (and related occupations) is rising sharply, apprenticeship completions are low (c28,000) and retirements are significant (80,000 by 2030). This all suggest new solutions will be needed in meeting electrical skills demands over the next decade.
Digital and IT
The Corporate Role in Accelerating Advanced Clean Electricity Technologies
Google, September 2023.
A fascinating insight to the world of Google and its management of energy on its path to net zero and carbon neutrality. Whilst this is a corporate publication, it is interesting to see how other major digital/IT businesses do likewise as there is growing public and government expectations for full transparency and openness.
Electric Vehicles
X-Change: Cars. The end of the ICE Age
Rocky Mountain Institute, September 2023.
An up-to-date read of the tipping point for EVs displacing ICE. This report covers the main drivers (in particular the rapid drop in the cost of batteries). It then highlights the potential impact of mineral availability and how some of them are under risk of supply shifts over time as recycling kicks in and becomes a major source of materials. We would add though that the batteries in cars are probably going to be repurposed and used in domestic energy storage systems. Nothing new here on skills.
Electric Vehicles Outlook 2023
Bloomberg NEF, August 2023.
A simple message from this report: EVs are growing and growing fast, from 10.5mn sold in 2022 rising to 27mn by 2026. Five areas are identified which are critical to this growth: price parity, range, battery technology, truck fleet high powered charging, and the impact of autonomous vehicles. Very rich in data with over 330 figures and charts. Despite wobbles with policies in various countries about the phasing out of ICE vehicles, we’ll look back on them as being Canute-like actions.
Engineering and Manufacturing
Engineering and Technology are of vital importance to the UK
Engineering UK, July 2022.
A powerful factsheet which captures the importance of engineering to the UK’s economy (19% of jobs are in the sector) and the high-level engagement with the green economy: 55% of job adverts for green engineering jobs, 48% of adverts mention green skills, and 500,000 new jobs needed to support the green economy by 2050. Worrying are the apprenticeship numbers (running at 98,000 in 2021-22 but down), graduate numbers (38,615 are engineering and technology graduates), and a big shortfall in the number of industry placement for T Levels (43,500). Understanding the flows into and across critical sectors and occupations are vital for us to be able to manage the requirements of the net zero transition, and we need this view and understanding across all sectors, not just the ones that will deliver net zero most quickly and at least cost.
Health
How to produce a green plan: a three-year strategy towards net zero
NHS, June 2021.
Once we have a plan for an organisation and its transition to net zero, we start allocating responsibilities and roles. This guide shows the steps used in the biggest UK employer to create its various green plans. This is of interest to us as the growth of the NHS and its impact across the whole labour market will shape some aspects of how the whole net zero transition will take place.
Logistics
Logistics: Delivery a solution to the UK’s productivity puzzle
Oxford Economics for Logistics UK, September 2023.
Our interest here is in Chapter 5, “Preparing for a net zero future” which is instructive, and in particular the 15 case studies e.g. Amazon, Volvo, Asda, Tesco, DHL, UPS, Royal Mail, Nestle, Wincanton, Mars UK, DPD, EVRI, Freightliner, Generation Logistics, and John Lewis Partnership. Well worth a read.
Transport
Can we reduce car use fairly? A briefing on transport.
Just Transition Commission, Scotland, September 2023.
A short, practical, and very helpful report that takes us away from the clamour for more EVs and more charging points by having a systems approach to the transport system and the individual needs for mobility. One skills point that strikes us here is the ability to gather and manage public consent, and handling the by-product of chasing net zero might marginalise (isolate) some in our society. Such skills invariably emerge from community groups, and local authorities and will play a key role as we progress through the net zero transition.
(Un)Sustainable From Ship to Shore. How the cruise industry is trying to gaslight the public into believing that LNG is a climate solution
Opportunity Green, September 2023.
Simple message: LNG is clearly not the solution, and an alternative is desperately needed.
Decarbonising Ports and Harbours: Industry Insights and Vision
Maritime and Ports Innovation Network, March 2023
This is an area of the pathway to net zero but is one that is making progress and has great importance to the UK from the trade, tourist, everyday travel, and community points of view. We have already highlighted developments in this area e.g. e-ferries, and Portsmouth International Harbour. From a skills point of view we think it should have a higher profile within both transport and levelling-up.