Comment by Andrew Clark, Business Leader – Place, at Energy Systems Catapult. 

For years I have had the privilege of working with ‘places’ to forge a path to Net Zero. Key for me when it comes to planning for the future energy system, is that we need to take a place-based approach, underpinned by local evidence and insight, across the whole system. If you get that blend right, you will have a credible plan to unlock investment and help to create the energy system needed for a local area (as well as the country!) for the not-so-distant future.

NOW is the right time for a place-based approach to energy planning to combat the challenges facing the UK energy sector, while capturing the socio-economic benefits. The energy crisis is driving the cost of living crisis, with over 3 million UK households being classed as in fuel poverty; the Committee on Climate Change estimates that delivering Net Zero will require around £50bn of low carbon investment every year from 2030 (up from around £10bn in 2020), while energy security has taken on a renewed focus since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020 and the conflict in Ukraine.

The time is now, and the place needs to be local

I head up the Energy Systems Catapult’s Place team, we help places understand the value of taking a local approach, determine what the right path to Net Zero is for them, and help mobilise those plans into action.

A key part of our work has been creating localised whole energy systems roadmaps which join the dots of various local spatial and energy plans (taking into account ideas and views of local stakeholders) through the pioneering Local Area Energy Planning (LAEP) process. LAEPs were created, as a detailed and place-based approach to whole energy system planning, by my colleagues at the Catapult some 8 years ago.  Since then, work around LAEPs has developed immensely and its’ been honed as we’ve learnt more from conducting 21 plans and partnering and supporting others in delivering them. We’ve published the guidance on LAEPs, and this is now helping other practitioners and local authorities across the UK to specify and deliver plans to a shared, high standard.

There are now 64 councils across the UK who have either adopted or are developing LAEPs and the bulk of them have been done in the last two years.

A LAEP sets out a clear pathway for a place to deliver on national and local Net Zero targets and involves meaningful end-to-end stakeholder engagement to ensure the plan is a collective goal. It outlines costed interventions, in the near and longer term, to help in decarbonising a local area’s energy system.

This helps outline a way forward and crucially, de-risks investment and catalyses action.  This could include such things as changes in local heat, transport, and the energy efficiency of buildings as well as the deployment of renewable energy. It could also see the retrofitting of buildings, the creation of low carbon heat networks and the use of rooftop solar or wind turbines and of course upgrading and investing in the EV infrastructure.

LAEPs are already helping to inform investment, secure funding and fostering collaboration.  I’m really pleased the Place team has taken on a technical leadership role supporting Welsh Government in their pioneering commitment to scale up local area energy plans to create a national energy plan by 2024.

Where do we go from here?

NOW is the time for the acceleration of local energy planning as the momentum is growing, and so is the urgency of Net Zero. While national policy drives sectoral progress, it is in places that people, communities and organisations can coalesce and take the critical decisions to act, and where opportunities can be practically scaled for investment.

LAEP provides a detailed and impactful method to make this happen. The recent Net Zero Review, led by Chris Skidmore MP, recognised Local Area Energy Planning as a potentially foundational building block for Net Zero plans. Ofgem’s recent proposals, on the future of local energy institutions and governance, also acknowledge it as a key policy interaction.

The feedback from the people we’ve worked with over the last decade is helping us shape what is next for this pioneering approach and our role in its evolution. The process of conducting a local area energy plan is about identifying local opportunities, driving, and coordinating local action which gives confidence to decision makers, investors, project developers and other stakeholders and is central to achieving change and Net Zero targets.

The next challenge is how to turn the highlighted pathway to Net Zero into tangible action. In the Place team we are working to leverage the Catapult’s whole energy system expertise, from markets, policy and regulation to consumer insight and business model innovation, to help places shape and deploy solutions which will enable this at the pace and scale required to achieve Net Zero.

Ensuring consistent and robust place-based planning across the UK would be a national LAEP forward towards Net Zero and would help de-risk investment and drive the rollout of low carbon technologies at pace and scale, helping to realise the potential of our economy and communities.