T2.12 - fact sheet http://tyndall.e-collaboration.co.uk/publications/fact_sheets/untitled/t2_...

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How can UK policies drive energy technologies forward?

The development of low carbon energy technologies will play a key role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile,
the development of information technology, biotechnology and nanotechnology will influence energy use and demand.
Understanding developments in technological change and their subsequent impact on energy demand and the environment
is therefore required to help identify government policies that drive innovation and stimulate investment in new and
renewable energy technologies.

Professor Dennis Anderson, from the Imperial College Centre for Energy Policy and Technology, and colleagues are finding
ways to incorporate technological change in a global economic model to assess the effectiveness of incentives in
stimulating energy innovation. They will develop a set of scenarios describing how technologies may affect both energy
demand and the structure of energy supplies over the next 20 to 50 years. They will also use expert opinion on the timing
and scale of technology developments. The researchers will investigate the role of tax incentives to promote the
development of energy technologies that emit little or no carbon and public policies that encourage energy efficiency. They
will then complete the construction of a computer model of the global economy, incorporating the impact of technological
change on greenhouse gas emissions, that will provide a basis for modelling the economies of Europe, the UK, and
regional scales. This will enable the researchers to identify policies that steer developments in new and renewable energy
sources in directions that are favourable to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

The results will suggest pathways to a low carbon future, thus influencing post-Kyoto negotiations under the UN Climate
Change Convention and contributing to future assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change. The
economic model will also enable the interaction between changes in energy technologies, carbon emissions, Government
policy and the economy to be considered as part of the Tyndall Centre's integrated assessment of climate change.

A new Tyndall project is investigating how policies can drive changes in technology, and how this will affect electricity
costs, the economy and environment around the world.
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More information

Contact the lead investigator of Project T2.12 (Etech+: Technology policy and technical change, a dynamic global and UK
approach):
Professor Dennis Anderson
ICCEPT, Imperial College, London SW7 2BP, UK
Phone: +44 (0) 20 7594 6776; Fax: +44 (0) 20 7594 9334
Email: dennis.anderson@ic.ac.uk

Other researchers involved in this project are:

Dr Jonathan Köhler and Dr Terry Barker, Department of Applied Economics, University of Cambridge
Professor Ken Green and Dr Marcela Miozzo, Manchester School of Management, UMIST
Dr Paul Ekins and Professor Jim Skea, Policy Studies Institute
Dr Tim Foxton, Imperial College

Project duration:
June 2002 to May 2004

Useful web sites:

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T2.12 - fact sheet http://tyndall.e-collaboration.co.uk/publications/fact_sheets/untitled/t2_...

The Tyndall Centre: www.tyndall.ac.uk

Imperial College Centre for Energy Policy and Technology (ICCEPT): www.iccept.ic.ac.uk
Innovation and the Environment report: www.iccept.ic.ac.uk/pdfs/Innovation report.pdf

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