Welcome to the DECC 2050 calculator tool

Start using the 2050 Calculator

Overview

The UK has major choices about how to move to a secure, low-carbon energy system over the period to 2050. For example:

Should we do more to cut demand?
Should we rely more on increasing and decarbonising the energy supply?
How will we produce our electricity?
Which technologies will we adopt?

About the 2050 calculator

This tool is an interface to the first version of a calculator to help policymakers, the energy industry and the public understand these choices. This work is not about choosing a pathway out to 2050 today — such a task would not be feasible given the major unknowns and timeframe involved. However, this work enables us to better manage some significant long-term uncertainties and helps us to avoid making long-term decisions that are incompatible with meeting our 2050 emissions target.

How to help improve this calculator

Creating a low-carbon economy will require the consent and participation of citizens given the scale and pace of change required. Government can play a leadership role, but transforming our economy will require a coalition of citizens, business, and the energy industry.

We would like to test and refine this tool, its assumptions and its presentation, before engaging the public more widely.

This tool is a front end to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that carries out the actual calculations and contains all the assumptions. Download the spreadsheet.
There is a document that explains the assumptions and approach used in this work and some of its implications. Download the document.
We are running a call for evidence to help improve the assumptions and spreadsheet. Respond to the call for evidence on the DECC website.

You can also download the full source code to this interface to the calculator, under an open source licence. Patches gratefully received through that site.

How to use the 2050 calculator tool

The tool presents you with three charts, describing the demand for energy, the supply of energy and the greenhouse gas emissions for the UK. If you move your mouse over the chart, a box will appear describing what that line represents. On the bottom right of the screen, there are some key facts around greenhouse gas emissions reductions and energy security.

Below the charts are a list of sectors. For each sector of the economy, four trajectories have been developed, ranging from little or no effort to reduce emissions to extremely ambitious changes that push towards the physical or technical limits of what can be achieved. These are indicated by four numbered boxes. If you click on a number, then that trajectory is selected and the charts are recalculated. This calculation may take up to 30 seconds.

In general,

Level 1 assumes little or no attempt to decarbonise or change or only short run efforts; and that unproven low-carbon technologies are not developed or deployed.

Level 2 describes what might be achieved by applying a level of effort that is likely to be viewed as ambitious but reasonable by most or all experts. For some sectors this would be similar to the build rate expected with the successful implementation of the programmes or projects currently in progress.

Level 3 describes what might be achieved by applying a very ambitious level of effort that is unlikely to happen without significant change from the current system; assumes significant technological breakthroughs.

Level 4 describes a level of change that could be achieved with effort at the extreme upper end of what is thought to be physically plausible by the most optimistic observer. This level pushes towards the physical or technical limits of what can be achieved.

It should be recognised that even at level 2, the consequences of pursuing this effort across several different sectors in parallel will place a high demand on supply chains and skills, especially given that other countries are likely to be undertaking concurrent infrastructure changes. A pathway containing level 4 ambition in one or more sectors is likely to have very challenging consequences.

To help you make a selection, a short description of each trajectory will appear if you hover your mouse over one of the boxes. This is an illustrative and simplified statement of what is going on and does not explain a lot of the underlying assumptions. Please read the full 2050 Pathways Analysis call for evidence report for fuller descriptions.

Some of the sectors have boxes labeled A,B,C,D rather than 1,2,3,4. This indicates that there is not a simple correlation between the level of ambition on change and what happens to greenhouse gas emissions. Please read the short descriptions and the 2050 Pathways Analysis call for evidence report in these cases.

When experimenting with different pathways, you may like to consider:

The level of greenhouse gas emissions reductions.
Whether energy supply is balanced with energy demand.
The amount of fuel that would need to be imported.
The consequences of days with low wind.
The difficulty and consequences of achieving that pathway.

What to watch out for

While this analysis helps us look ahead, there are some limitations to the approach:

It is a model based on physical limits, not cost optimisation.
The cost of a pathway is not yet modelled.
GDP growth is a fixed assumption.
Population growth is a fixed assumption.
No assumptions are made about what the rest of the world does.
It does not consider the role that international emissions credits might play.
Like the UK's emission target, it does not take account of the emissions from:
- growing biofuels abroad,
- electricity generated in other countries.
- the overseas manufacture of products which the UK imports.
It does not prevent implausible combinations of action, such as:
- Very high levels of both solar PV and solar thermal at the same time — in practice these technologies may be competing for the same roof space;
- A thriving manufacturing industry and high levels of additional construction at the same time as a reducing demand for freight transport;
- Generating electricity through non-thermal processes, whilst at the same time rolling out use of district heating.
Similarly, the model does not account for all possible feedbacks between trajectory levels in different sectors.
The electricity system must be continually balanced to match supply and demand. The model tests this simplistically by the ability of the system to meet demands for electricity during a five-day anticyclone blocking event, with five days of low wind output and an increase in heating demand associated with the cold weather.
Any new, unabated generation is provided by gas-fired power stations.
All carbon-capture and storage (CCS) generation is assumed to be coal-fired. In reality, it may become possible to fit CCS to gas-fired plant.

Please see the full 2050 Pathways Analysis call for evidence report for more detail on these limitations.

What has changed since this tool launched

30 July 2010 — Updated the links to the call for evidence; added a Q and A on negative emissions in the right hand chart.
29 July 2010 — Added links to the a,b,c,d,e,f illustrative pathways from the call for evidence; fixed some typos.
28 July 2010 — Fixed a bug in the sector view pages where they would appear to be calculating forever

Start using the 2050 Calculator