Evaluating Strategies for Decarbonising the Transport Sector in Great Britain

Besides electricity and heat systems, transport sector contributes significantly to carbon emissions. Two strategies for decarbonizing transport sectors, i.e. electrification and a shift from fossil-fuel to hydrogen are evaluated in this paper. A multi-energy whole-system planning model formulated as a large-scale linear programming problem is proposed to analyse the cost performance of different strategies. The model consists of the simplified representation of an electricity system (generation, transmission, distribution, storage, and demand), energy transport demand, and hydrogen system (production, transmission, and storage). The first strategy assumes that all transportation fleets will be electrified. The importance of flexibility that can be potentially provided by electric vehicles to improve the integration of low-carbon generation technologies and electric vehicles is also assessed. The second strategy assumes all vehicles will be fuelled by hydrogen. The synergy between electricity and hydrogen system is analysed. A range of case studies on future GB development scenarios has been carried out to demonstrate the suitability of the model to assess the economic performance and energy system implications of different transport decarbonisation strategies.