Case Study
CPC & UK Dept for Transport (DfT)
Modelling of Electricity and green Hydrogen Scenarios to meet Future Airport Demand (MEHSAD)
Challenge
The world’s electricity demand is over 23 thousand Terawatt hours (TWh), predicted to increase to 40 thousand TWh by 2050. This is based on trajectories that considers increased demand due to digitisation, electrification of transport, industry, and production of hydrogen. Hydrogen is deemed important in achieving a clean and secure energy future. Current EU demand is 191 TWh, predicted to be 3000 TWh by 2050.
The Current energy mix is dominated by fossil fuels, but this demand is diminishing due to depleting reserves and climate emergency. Future energy sources will be dominated by low-carbon and renewable energy technologies to decarbonise aviation, meet UK’s Net-Zero targets and United Nations (UN) Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs). However, future aviation demand is unclear. More so, future development path of energy systems is unknown. This creates the need to model and analyse future demand scenarios to aid decision-making on policy and investments.
Solution
EGB Engineering MEHSAD project developed a high-fidelity modelling toolset to analyse impact of future demand on energy systems. The purpose was to determine the most economically advantageous scenario(s) for electricity and green hydrogen, understand the gaps and subsequent emissions in order to aid decision-making and influence policy, determine development paths for cost- effective low to zero emission technologies, and direct investments for Research & Development (R&D)
Results
The UK wide hydrogen demand was estimated along with the UK wide electricity demand. The energy demand took into account infrastructure and fuelling of flights requirements, with the number of current UK flights used to predict the energy consumption of flights for 2035 and 2050.