The implications of heat electrification on national electrical supply-demand balance under published 2050 energy scenarios

• Six published 2050 UK energy scenarios analysed in terms of supply reliability.
• Model presented improves on state-of-the-art regarding electrified heating.
• Electric heating has a significant influence on electricity peak load.
• Scenarios exhibit significant supply deficits, CHP based scenarios most reliable.
• Failure to achieve significant demand reduction will compound the balancing issue.

Published UK 2050 energy scenarios specify a range of decarbonised supply side technologies combined with electrification of transportation and heating. These scenarios are designed to meet CO2 reduction targets whilst maintaining reliability of supply. Current models of the UK energy system either make significant assumptions about the role of demand side management or do not carry out the analysis at sufficient resolution and hence determining the impact of heat electrification on the reliability of supply of the scenarios is not possible. This paper presents a new model that estimates national supply and demand, hour-by-hour. Calculations are based on 11 years of weather data which allows a probabilistic assessment of deficit frequency throughout the day. It is found that achieving demand reduction targets are far more important than meeting electrification targets and that significant adoption of CHP is most likely to deliver a viable energy future for the UK.