Empirically grounded technology forecasts and the energy transition

Speaker: Dr Rupert Way, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. Oxford Martin School

Rapidly decarbonising the global energy system is critical for addressing climate change, but concerns about costs have been a barrier to implementation. Historically, most energy-economy models have overestimated the future costs of key renewable energy technologies and underestimated their deployment, thereby overestimating total energy transition costs.

These issues have driven calls for alternative approaches and more reliable technology forecasting methods. We use an approach based on probabilistic cost forecasting methods that have been statistically validated by backtesting on more than 50 technologies to estimate future energy system costs in a variety of scenarios. Our results suggest that compared to continuing with a fossil fuel-based system, a rapid green energy transition will likely result in net savings of many trillions of dollars, even without accounting for climate damages or co-benefits of  climate policy.

Dr Rupert Way is a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute for New Economic Thinking and at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. He is also an Oxford Martin Fellow.

He has a PhD in mathematics, and his current research focuses on energy system modelling, technology forecasting, innovation and technological change, portfolio analysis, decision making under uncertainty, and understanding strategies for accelerating the sustainable energy transition.

Broader interests also include physics, complex systems, political and financial networks, and sustainability.

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