Energy, Waste, Sewage could be joined up in future infrastructure

A major new report by the UK Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium  looks into how we can meet the future growing demand for energy, water, waste, ICT and transport systems. It recommends that different sectors work more closely together to provide coordinated systems. It also suggests measures to manage growing demand, like smart electricity meters, water meters and road pricing.

‘By the middle of this century, we could see our sewage treatment works as energy generation sites and resource recovery facilities,’ said Professor Tom Curtis of Newcastle University, ‘but we need to be retooling now.’

For the first time, thanks to this LWEC- accredited activity, researchers have used the same method to analyse the nation’s energy, transport, water, waste and ICT systems. They demonstrated how the same factors, including population increase, economic growth and energy prices influence demand for all of these sectors.

‘In the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement, the Treasury made the case for improving Britain’s national infrastructure, says Professor Jim Hall, Director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford, who led the study. ‘Traditionally we have dealt with transport, energy and water in isolation – we have to pay more attention to how they interact with each other.’

The study, ‘A fast track analysis of strategies for infrastructure provision in Great Britain’, says that the UK’s carbon emissions targets will have to shape our infrastructure system in the long term – above all in energy; but also in transport, water supply, waste water and solid waste. It suggests that carbon targets and rising global energy prices will be a driver of innovation.

The research has been conducted over the last year by a consortium of seven of the UK’s leading universities, who have been working closely with government and utility companies. This is the first time that researchers have conducted a national review of likely future demands on all of the UK’s major infrastructure systems. The researchers are developing computer-modelled simulations to test future infrastructure policies and designs, which adapt existing systems as much as possible and target investments that are likely to provide us with the biggest benefits in the future.

For a copy of the full report, go to http://www.itrc.org.uk/outputs/