
Peter ConnorUniversity of Exeter | UoE · Department of Renewable Energy
Peter Connor
PhD
About
56
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Introduction
Peter Connor is an Associate Professor in Sustainable Energy Policy at the University of Exeter. Peter researches and teaches in the area of national renewable energy policy and regulation. He has a particular interest in the design and implementation of policy and regulation to support renewable energy sources of electricity and heat within the UK and amongst EU Member States. He is also interested in policy and regulation as it applies to the development of smarter delivery of energy.
Additional affiliations
August 2019 - present
Education
September 1997 - January 2002
Publications
Publications (56)
Anion exchange membrane (AEM) water electrolysers have shown their potential in green hydrogen production. One of the crucial tasks is to discover novel cost‐effective and sustainable electrocatalyst materials. In this study, a low‐cost Ni−S‐based catalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction was prepared via a simple electrodeposition process from a mo...
Lab-based activities provide essential skills for students within STEM disciplines, as lab activities provide students with research skills and science knowledge. Therefore, it is critical to note that female students have reported feeling less confident in conducting lab-based activities and report a lower sense of belonging in the lab. In two stu...
The withdrawal of the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) by the UK Government at the end of March 2019, which rewarded low carbon electricity generators with subsidy payments, has led to doubts over the future of small-scale generation in the country's energy system. This study contributes to navigating this post-subsidy uncertainty by identifying the factors as...
Hydrogen-bromine (H2-Br2) redox flow batteries (RFBs) have gained a lot of interest due to their advantages in mitigating the performance shortcomings of conventional zinc-bromine and vanadium flow batteries. Various carbon materials have been tested in H2-Br2 RFBs as bromine electrodes. However, a comparative study among the different carbon mater...
Pioneer cities have demonstrated a willingness and capability to decarbonise local heat systems, but support is needed to scale up action. Heat decarbonisation is not simply a technical challenge, but also a political and social one; stakeholders must inform decisions about appropriate technological and policy solutions and will, in turn, be affect...
Bromine based redox flow batteries (RFBs) can provide sustainable energy storage due to the abundance of bromine. Such devices pair Br2/Br⁻ at the positive electrode with complementary redox couples at the negative electrode. Due to the highly corrosive nature of bromine, electrode materials need to be corrosion resistant and durable. The positive...
This paper presents a methodology for the reliability and power flow analysis of islands or off-grid power networks for situations of scarce data and information. It offers a new and pragmatic approach to derive the required power network information, including the power cable parameters and the load at each power node. The paper aims to present th...
A growing literature highlights the presence of spatial differences in solar photovoltaic (PV) adoption patterns. Central to forward planning is an understanding of what affects PV growth, yet insights into the determinants of PV adoption in the literature are limited. What factors do drive the adoption at local level? Are the effects of these fact...
We describe a novel application of the field anomaly relaxation (FAR) method of scenario construction to the complex problem of smart grid development. We augment the FAR methodology with extensive expert input through all four steps to incorporate detailed knowledge of the technical, economic and policy issues relevant to informing scenarios for s...
Energy decentralisation' means many things to many people. Among the confusion of definitions and practices that may be characterised as decentralisation, three broad causal narratives are commonly (implicitly or explicitly) invoked. These narratives imply that the process of decentralisation: i) will result in appropriate changes to rules and inst...
The creation of smarter electricity systems is driven by a number of social, political and economic imperatives. It is simultaneously enabled by and contributing to rapid technological change. Key socio-economic challenges include issues of policy and regulation, such as maintaining physical network infrastructure at a time when regulated revenues...
Future electricity networks will have to become smarter, but how, and is it a free lunch? “The smart grid” is not a single artifact that can be picked off a shelf. The starting points are unique combinations emerging from historical choices about infrastructure, current generation, the potential for renewables, market structure, network regulation,...
The requirement to decarbonise the GB electricity system, alongside the falling costs of renewable technologies and developments in IT capabilities, provides GB with an opportunity for systemic change in the way that electricity is produced and sold, with the potential to enable flexibility markets at the local level given the correct regulatory co...
The shift to increasingly smarter grids will require preparation and planning on the part of a diverse selection of current and future stakeholders. There are substantive sources of uncertainty that will impact on the adoption of smarter grid solutions. Risks and uncertainties are placed in one of seven categories: markets, users, data and informat...
This paper outlines how current distribution network pricing can be revised to enable transition to a smart grid in a low-carbon economy. Using insights from expert interviews, it highlights multiple trade-offs between innovative pricing approaches and regulatory principles which might be resolved by a political decision on how the costs should be...
About ICE: Supported by Interreg VA France (Channel) England, the Intelligent Community Energy (ICE) project, aims to design and implement innovative smart energy solutions for isolated territories in the Channel area. Islands and isolated communities face unique energy challenges. Many islands have no connection to wider electricity distribution s...
Making electricity grids smarter is a challenging, long-term, and ambitious process. It consists of many possible transitions and involves many actors relevant to existing and potential functions of the grid. We applied a two round Policy Delphi process with a range of sectoral experts who discussed important drivers, barriers, benefits, risks and...
Photovoltaic (PV) panels offer significant potential for contributing to the UK’s energy policy goals relating to decarbonisation of the energy system, security of supply and affordability. The substantive drop in the cost of panels since 2007, coupled with the introduction of the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) Scheme in 2010, has resulted in a rapid increas...
The historical focus of renewable energy policy in the UK, as in most nations, has been on supporting deployment in renewable energy sources of electricity. The adoption of ambitious EU wide targets for renewable energy has forced greater consideration of renewable energy sources of heat (RES-H). The UK pushed ahead rapidly in considering different...
Making electricity grids smarter is a challenging, long-term, and ambitious process. It consists of many possible transitions and involves many actors relevant to existing and potential functions of the grid. We applied a two round Policy Delphi process with a range of sectoral experts who discussed important drivers, barriers, benefits, risks and...
This report performs a comparative review of the regulatory regimes for four EU Member States, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK with specific regard for how regulation impacts on distributed generation in each of these countries. It addresses both the positive and negative aspects of policy and the impacts each factor has on the potenti...
‘Smart grid’ is a catch-all term for the smart options that could transform the ways society produces, delivers and consumes energy, and potentially the way we conceive of these services. Delivering energy more intelligently will be fundamental to decarbonising the UK electricity system at least possible cost, while maintaining security and reliabi...
Smart grids are expected to play a central role in any transition to a low-carbon energy future, and much research is currently underway on practically every area of smart grids. However, it is evident that even basic aspects such as theoretical and operational definitions, are yet to be agreed upon and be clearly defined. Some aspects (efficient m...
This report provides a final combined assessment of two nationally centred strands of research that has been undertaken within the marine energy policy stream of the MERiFIC project. This research consisted of a two stage stakeholder consultation carried out in both the regions central to the project: the South West region of England and Brittany i...
The potential future benefits of having a strong marine renewable energy (MRE) sector within a country or region are both well recognised and well documented (Kablan et al., 2012; Vantoch-Wood et al., 2012; PMSS, 2010).
Several basic requirements are needed to commercialise MRE in coastal regions:
• adequate primary resource within an economic dis...
Renewable energy sources of heat offer the substantial economic, environmental and social benefits associated with renewable electricity but policy to support their expansion is considerably less advanced. The potential for applying various support instruments to renewable heat is considered with advantages and disadvantages discussed.
This report provides a comparative assessment of the wider planning, innovation and energy policy instruments relevant to marine renewable energy and applicable to the regions of Brittany in France and South West England. In addition to this, aspects of the wider institutional and political contexts in each country that have an adverse or positive...
Marine renewable energy technologies are a key element for both the decarbonising the electricity generation sector and for providing a nationally secure energy supply, less vulnerable to the volatilities of both world politics and fluctuating energy markets. Many problems remain for their wider adoption, including intermittent generation profiles,...
The project “Policy development for improving RES-H/C penetration in European Member States (RES-H Policy)“ aimed at assisting the governments of Member States in preparing for the implementation of the EU Renewables Directive 2009/28/EC1 as far as aspects related to renewable
heating and cooling (RES-H/C) are concerned. Selected Member States were...
Within the EU-27 biomass heating covers about 90% of all renewable energy sources in the heating sector (RES-H). According to the NREAPs of EU member states, biomass heating should further increase from 49 Mtoe (2005) to 87 Mtoe (2020). Yet, several questions are open regarding required support policies and the expected technological, economic and...
This Working Document summarises policy recommendations to improve the policy framework for RES-H/C in the United Kingdom. A policy set has been proposed based on the different elements of the policy analysis that has been conducted throughout this project. The document describes the proposed policy instruments and a strategy how to best implement...
This Working Document summarises the results of the assessment of the effectiveness
and economic efficiency of different support instrument options to foster the market
penetration of RES-H/C in the UK. For two selected policy options related costs (mainly
public transfer costs) and benefits (e.g. growth in RES-H/C capacities, avoided fuel
costs, r...
Innovation is essential for addressing climate change. It is recognised that technological innovation alone is insufficient, and we suggest that a greater focus on research, policy and practice in the area of bottom-up, social innovation could yield benefits if integrated into wider considerations of research and policy development concerning clima...
The purpose of this report is to present an overall picture of the situation in the heating and cooling sectors of the United Kingdom. The report summarizes the policy and regulatory framework of the UK heating and cooling markets and gives the available statistics on the penetration rate of the different RES-H/C technologies, as well as the RES po...
This paper considers the particular needs of RES-H technologies in terms of the policy instruments which might best suit their growth. It considers what lessons might be learned from the policy experience with renewable energy sources of electricity (RES-E) whilst also emphasising the key differences which have the potential to undermine the applic...
The European Union is particularly rich in variations of different delivery mechanisms for increasing the use of renewable energy. The requirements of liberalisation in continental Europe, the re-regulation of the UK's gas and electricity sectors in 2000 and ongoing environmental commitments has meant the establishment of a new generation of mechan...
The UK's renewable energy policy has been characterised by opportunism, cost-limiting caps and continuous adjustments resulting from a lack of clarity of goals. Renewable electricity has had a specific delivery mechanism in place since 1990. The Non-Fossil Fuel Obligation (NFFO) did not deliver deployment; did not create mentors; did not promote di...
The UK's renewable energy policy has been characterised by opportunism, cost-limiting caps and continuous adjustments resulting from a lack of clarity of goals. Renewable electricity has had a specific delivery mechanism in place since 1990. The Non- Fossil Fuel Obligation (NFFO) did not deliver deployment; did not create mentors; did not promote d...
This paper notes that different nation's approaches to innovation and industrial policy impact on the range of renewable energy policy options available, the choices that are made and the aims that underlie them. It considers those policies which have been most successful in stimulating installed wind energy capacity and industrial growth in wind t...
The paper addresses both historical and current UK policy relating to renewable energy. It discusses the stated aims of policy, and discusses to what extent policy has addressed these aims, and the level of success enjoyed with respect to each goal. The paper also addresses the context in which UK policy has developed, and the effects this has had...
This report identifies the main factors at play with regard to the interaction of distributed
generation with the regulatory framework of the UK. It identifies the barriers that the current
UK regulatory framework raises to block the greater penetration of distributed generation and
discusses possible actions that might be utilised to address these...
This chapter discusses the move to maturity in the wind turbine manufacturing industry. The historical development of the wind turbine manufacturing industry is fitted against a generic industrial model. The growth of wind turbine manufacturing in Spain exhibits signs of maturity within the industry. The evidence for this is reviewed with regard to...
While there have been numerous pilot projects with different wave energy devices, the commercial application of wave energy will see the technology installed in more diverse locations. Their deployment has the potential to conflict with other, perhaps already established, use of both the space in which wave energy devices are likely to be best situ...
Abstract The European Union is particularly rich in variations of different delivery mechanisms,for increasing the use of renewable energy. The requirements of liberalisation in Cont inental Europe and the re-regulation of the UK’s gas and electricity sectors in 2000, has established a new generation of mechanisms to follow on from early prototypes...