Theme 4: Demand, Innovation, Deliberation & Sustainability
Theme 4 is being led by Professor Paul Ekins at UCL Energy Institute, University College London, and involves the analysis of social, policy and economic issues of sustainable hydrogen energy. It requires significant collaboration between social and economic scientists at UCL and Salford as well as significant interactions with technology partners within the Consortium.
Theme 4 consists of four main sub-themes:
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Demand - understanding probable demand for hydrogen energy, and the need for technology breakthroughs in prodution and storage to meet this;
- Innovation - study of facilitators and obstacles to technology innovation in hydrogen energy systems;
- Deliberation - examination of preferences for different hydrogen energy scenarios, for example via citizens' panels; and
- Sustainability - impact analysis of hydrogen roadmaps.
The main aim of Theme 4 is to identify economic and social issues that will influence whether or not hydrogen becomes a major energy carrier, and public policy priorities for the promotion of hydrogen energy.
Recent work has included the publication of a book in 2010 on the socioeconomic aspects of hydrogen energy, entitled “The hydrogen economy: economic and social challenges” (the first in this area) edited by Paul Ekins. The book contains 11 chapters from UK-SHEC participants, including chapters written collaboratively with colleagues in SUPERGEN XIV Delivery of Sustainable Hydrogen.
Theme 4 also includes a PLUS package, which involves a collaborative initiative working between four SUPERGEN Consortia (UK-SHEC, FlexNet, Marine and Bioenergy). The overall aim is to bring together the scenarios and techno-economic outputs of all consortia to enable a better understanding of the optimum innovation dynamics, conditions and pathways of the main renewable energy technologies in providing a transition to a low carbon economy. Strong working relationships have been developed between the research teams through a series of working meetings and workshops.