How do you turn a local Net Zero vision into an evidence-based plan which delivers for an area? Well, that is exactly what Local Area Energy Planning (LAEP) is all about, by providing the ‘what, where, how many, by who, and when’.

A coordinated approach 

I coined the phrase Local Area Energy Planning in 2018 and I am so pleased its gaining traction across the UK as places look to plan and deliver their Net Zero aims and ambitions. At the end of 2021 we had 15 local areas in the UK either with a LAEP in place or were developing one. As of May 2024, there are over 100 areas who have either completed or are undertaking a LAEP – accounting for around 25% of local authorities in the UK. And that is without LAEP being mandated or funded in a co-ordinated way centrally (except for Welsh Government who have commissioned LAEPs for all 22 of their local authorities). That is local places recognising the need to get a data rich and evidence-based plan to inform action and projects.

The Catapult (based on work by the Energy Technologies Institute beforehand and funded by the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy) came up with the concept of LAEP because we could see that unlike other practices, like transport planning, decarbonisation activity was uncoordinated, with different organisations doing their own thing.

To achieve Net Zero and to do this cost-effectively it is clear that as there are many moving parts, they all need to be thought about together (that’s why a ‘whole energy system’ approach is central to Local Area Energy Planning). Also key is that plans should be locally led, rather than being imposed on local places through a national, top-down approach. That is why in recent years we’ve created guidance around how to deliver a LAEP and this is now being used by councils and those delivering LAEPS. Over the last decade we’ve delivered 22 LAEPs and it’s great to see others have entered the market to deliver and help support continued innovation in this space. We created guidance as a framework for local areas to procure someone to help them deliver a local LAEP – but consistency and robustness remain a challenge.

For over a decade we’ve been refining the process and adapting it to the ever-changing innovations that are taking place – from policy changes to technological advances– it cannot and should not be seen as a static piece of work that gives you a complete plan – but what it does do is give an area the evidence for a cost optimal and wider co-benefits route to decarbonising. Crucially what it does do is it helps coordinate and focus resources in the near-term to ensure places are on track for Net Zero; significantly this involves setting out what are the big and low regret changes areas need to get on with.

The ’perfect plan’

At its core, a good LAEP gives a local area a highly visual granular plan that shows what needs to be done, where it can be done, and when it can be done. For example, how many heat pumps or solar panels an area might need and the associated costs to install.

A good LAEP will include the following:

• The chosen pathway with sequenced interventions that set out the area’s proposed route to Net Zero.
• A ‘plan on a page’ that provides an at-a-glance impression of the scale of least regret interventions across the different geographical zones of the local area.
• Visual focus zones for all the prioritised activity associated with getting to Net Zero.
• Outline priority projects, providing users of the LAEP with priority. Interventions to take forward.
• Breakdown of investment to decarbonise the local area.
• Highlighted next steps including key immediate/near-term activities and actions needed to progress the LAEP.
• Corresponding data sets that can be used for a future LAEP update or by organisations to support project/implementation activity.

The plan on a page, provides a brilliant high-level, masterplan style view of the activity needed by technology and asset type across a place, however, it is then supported by more granular visual focus zones, illustrating the deployment of activity down to a more recognisable neighbourhood level. This accompanied with even finer data (e.g, postcode level) of locally informed spatial, visual, and granular level information is helping to facilitate delivery and investment at scale.

In many conversations I and my colleagues have had with councils we’ve heard about projects being delivered and hopes for how they might contribute to a local areas Net Zero target. Whilst this is to be encouraged, we still need to understand all the other parts of the landscape and how it all fits together, which is why a good LAEP is important as it gives a local area a framework to target action; it’s a bit like trying to build a house without an architect and design. It will help identify low regret, quick wins as well as some of the longer-term strategic projects that will help an area achieve its aims in a co-ordinated way. And the evidence shows an evidenced, place-based approach is the most cost effective.

A seven-stage process

A good LAEP will follow the guidelines and the seven stages, there are lots of tools and approaches out there which use the term LAEP but when you look into it quite often all it really is some data visualisation of the current energy system in a location. Whilst this is useful to identify quicks wins, it doesn’t model future pathways and take a whole energy systems approach, helping a local area deliver the most cost-effective route to Net Zero.