Written evidence submitted by National Physical Laboratory (CGE0014)

Introduction

1.       The National Physical Laboratory (NPL), as the UK's National Measurement Institute, is the prime deliverer of the UK Measurement Strategy. NPL is a world-leading centre of excellence in developing and applying the most accurate measurement standards, science and technology available. It is a partner organisation of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and sits at the nexus of government, industry and academia.

2.       For more than a century, NPL has developed and maintained the nation's primary measurement standards. These standards underpin an infrastructure of traceability throughout the UK and the world ensuring accuracy and consistency of measurement. NPL conducts high-quality measurement science and provide products and services that enable businesses (from multinational corporations to SMEs) and public organisations to make reliable measurements and have confidence in the decisions they make based on them.

3.       NPL welcomes the opportunity to input into the Science and Technology Select Committee inquiry on Technologies for meeting Clean Growth emissions reductions targets. Below we address the issues raised in the Terms of Reference. 

Executive Summary

4.       In summary, the main points we make in response to the questions set out in the terms of reference are:

• The accuracy and traceability of emissions measurements are critical to maximise the confidence in the conclusions that can be drawn from emission data. To increase this confidence better processes for measuring emissions are needed in different sectors and there needs to be a better understanding of the levels of uncertainty in current data.
• The appropriate measurement and standards infrastructure needs to be in place to validate and demonstrate the performance of technologies to help meet the Clean Growth emissions reduction targets.

The Clean Growth Strategy:

-          the relative importance of the four main areas identified in the Strategy, and whether the Strategy places the right weight on each of those sectors to deliver emissions reductions;  

5.       NPL supports the targeting of the four main areas for emissions reduction identified in the Clean Growth Strategy (Improving Our Homes; Accelerating the Shift to Low Carbon Transport; Delivering Clean, Smart, Flexible Power; and Enhancing the Benefits and Value of Our Natural Resources). However, each have challenges which we will address below.

Improving our homes

6.       Energy for heating and hot water account for around 40% of UK energy consumption and 20% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.[1] Addressing energy efficiency in homes is a great area to focus on benefitting both the environment and UK consumers by reducing energy usage at home, lowering emissions and household energy bills.

7.       Using appropriate materials can reduce energy loss in homes. There is a need for proper testing and evaluation methods to establish the impact that is being had. NPL anticipated this need and hosted the only UK based hotbox to underpin building design models as well as energy efficiency models with real world measurements. However, the regulatory system is not enforcing a demand for this in industry and so this facility was not maintained.

8.       NPL supports the move towards smart homes through its work on sensor technology, sensor networks, data science and modelling. NPL is supporting the UK roll out of smart meters, through a EURAMET project to underpin type testing, validating smart meter performance and developing traceability processes.

Accelerating the shift to low carbon transport

9.       NPL is engaging in activity to support the shift to low carbon transport, working on areas including hydrogen technologies, fuel cells and batteries. NPL have also entered strategic international partnerships to develop the underpinning metrology to enable autonomous driving. The regulatory requirements for hydrogen in the transport sector set a high standard for hydrogen production and refuelling stations. 

10.   There is a need for standardised and impartial emissions testing protocols for cars, especially in light of the recent VW scandal. The UK has an opportunity to lead the global shift towards such protocols and the international network of National Measurement Institutes is well placed to support this.

Delivering clean, smart, flexible power

11.   The UK is one of the top ten investors in renewables globally.[2] This is a strong position for the UK to be in, and it is important that the UK continues to invest in this valuable sector.

12.   Lowering the capital and operating expenditure for renewables is a continued target for government and industry; and innovation funding should be continued to be made available.

13.   Integrating renewables into the power system, brings with it issues around grid stability and storage demand that requires further focus in order to facilitate the increased use of clean power.

14.   The batteries sector has seen huge R&D efforts from industry, and government rightly has established the research and innovation side of this through the Faraday Institute. The standardisation of the technologies, diagnostics and more broadly testing methodologies is crucial in the scale up of the technology and NPL is at the heart of this effort. However considering unintended consequences is also important as the disposal of batteries could result in a hazardous waste issue.

15.   Mission Innovation Challenge 8 is tasked to identify innovation challenges on the global level and hydrogen purity features in this.[3] The transport industry requires stringent purity standards and NPL has developed world leading hydrogen purity analysis technology and processes.

Enhancing the Benefits and Value of Our Natural Resources

16.   We are pleased to see the Government is committed to having Natural Capital at the heart of its environmental policies. Putting an economic cost on the value of our environment is abstract and difficult. Taking a Natural Capital approach to this can help to take this step and Defra and BEIS should work holistically to establish the right policy environment to address the issue.

17.   Monitoring emissions for land use is a very complex process, and there is significant work required to reduce the uncertainty surrounding the emissions data related to land use, which may then enable new solutions on how to address these emissions.

18.   Our understanding of the size of carbon stores is mostly established through calculations. These involve deployment of people to the area to make an on the ground assessment, this is time intensive and still results in high levels of uncertainty. Satellite imaging could be used to estimate levels of carbon sequestration in forests, but the current imagery is not of a high enough specification, to do this accurately.

-          progress on meeting carbon budget targets to date and areas where more progress is needed going forward; 

19.   Reducing emissions in line with targets will require almost complete decarbonisation of the power sector and significant decarbonisation of the transport and heat sectors. On current trajectories, the UK is on track to meet the EU target of 30% renewable generation for electricity by 2020, but is expected to miss the target for 12% of heat and 10% of transport to be from renewable sources over the same period.[4]

20.   Due to the cross cutting nature of clean growth and emissions reduction targets, going forward the government should seek more cross-departmental coordination of the various ministries, agencies and regulators. This could further be supported by increased coordination with existing nationally funded governmental laboratories and research institutes.

-          the extent to which current and future technologies can help to meet the carbon budgets; and

-          the uncertainty in future technologies’ contribution to emissions reductions, and how that uncertainty can best be incorporated into the Government’s carbon budgets. 

21.   In order to identify the areas that need to be targeted and establish if interventions are successful, it is essential that the government is able to accurately measure greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions levels across the different sectors.

22.   In NPL’s response to the Clean Air Strategy consultation we highlight the importance of increasing real world measurements, ensuring there is a sufficient number and range of accurate and traceable measurements made to improve the confidence in the data produced. Real world measurements allow the progress against the Carbon Budgets to be validated.

23.   Direct emissions monitoring of particular emission sources allows the government to maintain an accurate set of emissions factors used to calculate emissions within the UK GHG inventory. Emissions factors play a substantial role in the accuracy of GHG calculations. NPL worked with the Committee on Climate Change to investigate the uncertainties of the UK GHG inventory and found that currently, the UK has relatively low uncertainties in its inventory.[5] These uncertainties have the potential to grow significantly unless action is taken to better understand and address the sources of the uncertainties (which are mainly land sector driven). New technologies, for instance Liquefied Natural Gas shipping or shale gas operations, will require appropriate emissions factors, which are currently not well understood. Good measurement practice can help to establish these factors.

24.   The Committee on Climate Change 2017 Report1 notes that new more accurate models and monitoring techniques should be developed to continue to monitor emissions and provide independent external validation of GHG emissions

25.   NPL with other members of the international measurement community, have been working on developing good measurement practice to improve reproducibility of data generated in research.[6] We have expertise in working with large datasets, understanding the uncertainty associated with data and improving the traceability of data, all of which helps to develop confidence in the data.

How the development and deployment of technology can best be supported, and the extent to which the Government should support specific technologies or pursue a ‘technology neutral’ approach;

26.   Using the best available evidence, the Government should look at technologies that have the highest potential to decarbonise our systems. This will guide its support for specific technologies over others.

27.   New technologies need to be validated independently and accurately. Not only will this allow Government to make an informed decision about the technology, but this will also give confidence to potential private investors and customers to drive the market interest.

Examples of specific technologies whose development and deployment have been effectively supported so far, as well as those that show particular promise for meeting the Government’s carbon emissions targets or supporting the UK’s economy, or which would benefit from specific Government action, in the future;

28.   The Government has already made investments into the creation of a smart grid within the national power networks. The UK needs to further develop its understanding of the impact of renewables and how to handle this appropriately. NPL is running a programme on the island of Bornholm, which currently runs on about 50% renewable energy. This could be used as a case study for the UK market going forward.

29.   The Government has already made commitments to support the batteries sector through the Faraday Challenge. The UK aspires to establish itself as a leader internationally and could interlink with global projects like the World Bank Batteries Programme.[7] Standardisation across technologies, early stage research, and R&D through to manufacturing processes are required. Formalising the link between the UKRI Research Councils and the National Measurement System would facilitate this.

30.   Hydrogen is a fast emerging technology that has great potential to decarbonise areas like heat and transport. Key measurement support is required to de-risk deployment of this technology. NPL is already supporting basic infrastructure such as purity analysis through to metering. This also needs to be connected with work internationally if new transportation and storage mechanisms are to be enabled (e.g. salt cavern storage and pipeline transportation).

31.   Emissions monitoring is, as highlighted above, crucial in ensuring we accurately keep track of our progress against the emissions reduction targets.

• At facility level, further work is required to develop and validate cost effective solutions to continued emissions monitoring methodologies. Oil and gas will continue to play a role in the energy mix for the next decade or so.
• At regional level, new technologies such as satellite-based emissions monitoring technologies are coming into the market. This could enable regional emissions monitoring and remote sensing facilities. Most technologies are however commercial operations where the methodologies are not in the public domain and accuracy levels of the technologies are uncertain. More work needs to be done to validate these technologies.
• NPL is currently working to further develop ‘top down’ verification of the UK’s national GHG inventory. This is conducted by measuring and modelling the ambient atmosphere at five monitoring sites and provides the inventory estimates with an independent assessment of integrated country-scale emissions. Further development will provide a greater level of detail in independent assessment of GHG inventories such as estimating methane emissions at the sector level.

The role of the Industrial Strategy ‘Clean Growth Grand Challenge’, and what the Government should do to ensure it contributes effectively to meeting emissions targets. 

32.   The Clean Growth Grand Challenge should continue to facilitate cross-sector collaborations and partnerships between public sector entities like NPL, academia and industry and ensure that they are developing applied research outputs which are wanted by relevant users.

33.   All the innovations should be tested and evaluated to ensure they are meeting the standards required to contribute to a reduction in carbon emissions.

October 2018