BENV0012 ESSAY ASSESSMENT
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BENV0012 ESSAY ASSESSMENT
This essay will be used to assess your understanding of a range of the topics and content covered on BENV0012. This essay must not exceed 2,500 words. This must be your own independent work, and cannot be done in collaboration with other students.
Further information regarding the use of generative AI for this assignment can be found on Moodle in the Assessment section, and labelled Use of Generative AI in BENV0012 assessment.
The essay topic will be made available on Monday 13th November 2023. It will need to be submitted by 11.00 on Wednesday 10th January 2024 via the Turnitin link that will be made available on the ‘Assessment’ section of the Moodle page.
Energy system models for the assessment of national climate policy targets
A focus of the module is on the development and use of energy system models, including for the assessment of pathways to decarbonisation. This includes the types of modelling approaches that can be used, the development of scenarios to help shape thinking about the future, and methods to account for uncertainty. This essay assignment has been developed to assess your understanding of these topics and your ability to apply this knowledge to current energy and climate policy challenges. This assignment involves writing an essay that describes how you would design a modelling study to assess the economic, social and technological implications of a net-zero CO2 (or GHG) target on the UK energy system, or another country’s energy system.
As you are only designing the study, you do not need to undertake any modelling yourself or generate results. To describe the design of the study, you will need to draw on the course lectures, the wider reading list, and from your own knowledge of energy and climate policy.
Requirements of the study design
To highlight the relevance of this assignment, consider that you are writing your essay in response to the following request from the Ministry of Energy.
The ministry is seeking to commission an energy modelling study to assess how it should meet its net-zero CO2 (or GHG) target in 2050 (or beyond e.g. 2060/2070), and any interim targets prior to this target. Prior to commissioning this modelling, the ministry has asked for recommendations on how such a modelling study should be designed. The assignment, therefore, is to provide advice by describing how such a modelling study should be designed and undertaken. The modelling that will eventually be commissioned will need to provide information on the following –
• Possible mixes of energy supply and demand options
• Costs implications and investment requirements
• GHG emission reduction potentials
• Insights on types of policies needed to deliver the climate policy targets
Therefore,the scope of the modelling needs to include the following –
• Coverage of the whole energy system, or a focus on a key sector (or sectors) of the energy system
• Domestic (or territorial) CO2 or GHG emissions from the energy sector (emissions from the waste, agriculture and LULUCF sector do not necessarily need to be considered in this study)
• Consideration of options relevant to energy supply (upstream of end use sectors) and energy demand
Specific requirements of your essay on the study design
In responding to this request on a recommended study design, please include the following elements in your essay –
1. Provide an introduction to the modelling study, including its relevance given the energy and climate policy context of the country you have chosen.
2. Suggest what type of modelling approach you would use e.g. optimisation, simulation etc. Feel free to name the type of model. Please justify the proposed approach, outlining why it is suitable for such a study.
3. Propose 2-4 scenarios that you think should be considered in this study, describing briefly their underlying narrative, and justify why these are important to consider and relevant to the chosen country context.
4. Describe your suggested approach to integrating wider perspectives in the modelling analysis, including the types of stakeholder to be involved and how they would be integrated into the modelling process. Focus on who you would involve, why, how, and at what stage of the process.
5. Suggest how you would address key uncertainties in your approach to modelling. Identify and justify inclusion of key uncertainties (beyond the above scenario dimensions) that you would focus on, which are particularly relevant to the chosen country context, and propose the analytical approach to assessing them.
6. Propose one or two additional feature(s) of the modelling approach that you would consider (linked modelling approaches, model enhancements, expanded scope) to improve the study design.
7. Critique your overall approach, stating clearly any limitations, whilst setting out how further research could address such limitations. This may be based on your chosen modelling approach, or other elements of the study design.
The proposed modelling study needs to be designed with modelling best practice in mind. Therefore, please consider and reference as appropriate guidance on modelling, notably section 3 ofDecarolis et al., 2017and section 3.8 ofMorgan and Henrion, 1990. It is expected that you fully support your proposed study design with references. Please refer to the course reading list and other sources to reflect wider literature in support of your study design.
Note that you are free to structure the essay as you feel is most appropriate, and which provides for a logical flow. Example essay structures for this assignment are provided on Moodle, in the document Essay structure for BENV0012 assessment.
Finally, please pay close attention to the marking criteria below. The weighting of marks highlights how the marker will be allocating marks, so for example, 35% with respect to meeting the seven requirements listed above.
2024-01-06