Final word on wholeSEM by Professor Neil Strachan:

“Energy models provide the integrating language and essential quantitative insights into these 21st Century challenges of decarbonisation, energy security and cost-effectiveness. The wholeSEM consortium ran from 2013 to 2017 and played a fundamental underpinning role in the UK’s strategic energy modelling activity.

The attached presentation was successively presented to key UCK energy policy stakeholders – Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), Committee on Climate Change (CCC), Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (OFGEM) and the Energy Systems Catapult (ESC). It discusses how wholeSEM fulfilled its research goals through the development and documentation of major modelling tools, with a wide set of academic publications and conference presentations. The outreach function of wholeSEM to bind together the UK modelling community is discussed through four international leading annual energy conferences, a series of specialist events and an innovative bilateral Fellowship programme. The policy impact of wholeSEM is seen in the major contributions to key developments, including CCC’s 5^th carbon budget, and BEIS’ Clean Growth Strategy.

Perhaps most innovative was wholeSEM breaking new ground on interdisciplinary energy modelling, addressing the conceptual and practical difficulties of truly cross-disciplinary analysis and insights. As Principal Investigator of wholeSEM, it has been my privilege to work with our four partner universities and with our Advisory Board over the last 4 years.” Professor Neil Strachan