The fourth phase of the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) (UKRI support: £18 million) is undertaking world-class research on the decarbonisation of key sectors such as industry, transport and heat, and exploring the role of local, national and global changes in energy systems.

Transport is a major contributor to determinants of population health. Adverse health impacts are greatest in rapidly urbanising and motorising lower and middle income country cities.

UK fleet models account poorly for potential for flexibility and the spatial and temporal differences. National scale energy models and local-level distribution network models need to ‘meet in the middle’ to understand how changes in demand and generation in the distribution network will impact the transmission network and vice versa. General Distribution and Electricity Transmission Network models need better assessments of where and when high-end domestic and electric vehicle use will combine.

The FAIR (Fuel and trAnsport poverty In the UK’s energy tRansition) project will examine the intersections between fuel and transport poverty, and low carbon energy transitions, in the UK. Fuel poverty has been defined as the inability to secure materially- and socially-necessitated energy services, such as heating a home or using appliances. Transport poverty is the enforced lack of mobility services necessary for participation in society, resulting from the inaccessibility, unaffordability or unavailability of transport.

The purpose of this project is to develop an alternative path to electric vehicle ownership and use for households without sufficient or appropriate parking to charge electric vehicles from their homes. Park and Charge (PnC) aims to deliver a new technological and business model design via an easy-to-use, car-park-based service.

Advances in vehicle connectivity and autonomy have increased speculation around the future of the car. Dominated by techno-economic views, these debates currently tend to overemphasise the scale, speed and benefits of a shift to connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs). 'Non-technical' factors (e.g., costs, regulatory frameworks, public acceptance) are typically seen as presenting the main barriers to deployment. Such accounts fail to recognise how cultural, institutional and everyday practices will shape CAV developments.

Automated vehicles (AVs) could represent the most profound technological change in road transport since the rise of mass production, with reductions in energy demand being one of the many anticipated benefits. Expectations about the effects of AVs on transport systems, including their impacts on energy demand and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, are currently soaring. However, there is considerable uncertainty because 1) AV technology is developing rapidly and needs to be embedded in existing mobility systems, 2) automobility is also in flux for factors beyond automation, and 3) AV adoption is in its infancy.

The energy storage capacity of electric vehicles (EVs) presents new opportunities and value propositions for vehicle-to-grid (V2G) power system services. Potential benefits could include the alleviation of the need for generation and transmission investments and increases in network efficiency and energy security. These benefits arise as V2G technologies enable EVs to deliver electricity from their batteries back into the smart grid which can then be used to power homes and businesses.