Modern Energy Partners: Practical decarbonisation of UK public sector estate
Modern Energy Partners (MEP) was a ground-breaking £20million innovation pilot exploring how to practically decarbonise the public sector estate to help the government reduce carbon emissions by 50% by 2032.
MEP ran from April 19 to September 21, with Energy Systems Catapult coordinating and delivering the programme and providing analytical and technical expertise, while drawing on cross-industry capabilities and knowledge from Aecom, Atkins, Buro Happold, Ricardo and Stantec amongst others.
MEP was funded by the Energy Innovation Programme from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and delivered findings that complex public sector sites — such as hospitals, prisons, and military barracks — could achieve a 70% reduction in carbon emissions by 2032 with an average capital cost of £12.6m per site.
The Challenge
With more than 300,000 individual properties, at a combined value of £515bn, the UK public sector manages, by some distance, the largest property portfolio in the country. The Central Government estate alone has an estimated value of £157.6bn, with an annual running cost of £21.7bn. Public sector buildings are responsible for around 2% of the total UK greenhouse gas emissions.
While the Government has made good progress in decarbonising its operations – reducing emissions by 57% by 2021-21 compared to 2009-10 and with an estimated 38% of this reduction due to improved management of the estate – there is still more to be done.
The government has pledged to reduce direct carbon emission from public sector buildings by 50% by 2032 and to reduce them by 75% by 2037, both against a 2017 baseline. In its 2017 Clean Growth Strategy, the government committed the public sector to lead by example in reducing emissions.
The Innovation
The MEP strategy was to develop was a repeatable, systematic and scalable approach, that incorporated whole-systems thinking, to decarbonisation of the public sector estate from individual buildings to large campus sites and whole estate portfolios.
Energy Systems Catapult focused on learning through doing, testing out the practicalities of decarbonisation methodologies directly to sites across the health, prison, and defence sectors.
MEP investigated a test bed of 42 sites responsible for over 4 million tCO2e carbon emissions – equating to 3.2% of Ministry of Defence (MOD), 13% of Ministry of Justice (MOJ), and 3.5% of NHS sites, including three pathfinder sites:
HM Sheppey Prison Cluster
HMS Collingwood – Royal Navy base
NHS Goole and District Hospital
At Goole and District Hospital for example, the MEP innovation pilot developed a decarbonisation plan for the site that demonstrated how a £2.8million investment could decarbonise the site by 66%.
Between March and December 2021, the Hospital implemented a range of measures aimed at reducing its carbon footprint following the MEP recommendations, these included: the removal of existing coal-fired boilers, the installation and integration of a new building management system, and upgrades to the building fabric.
Further demonstrating the value of the MEP methodology, HMS Collingwood the Royal Navy’s largest training establishment and headquarters to the Maritime Warfare School, has reduced its energy usage by 3.8 Gigawatt hours on site (9% of the site’s annual usage). In addition, £530,000 and 560 tCO2e has been saved per annum on the campus.
The final result for MEP, was an innovation solution that did indeed produce scalable, replicable methodologies for the decarbonisation of the public sector estate, which focused on three aspects in particular:
Rapid deployment of sub-metering and data analysis;
The creation of Concept Designs that offered each site a decarbonisation pathway;
Accelerating no-regret measures on site.
Case Studies
HMS Collingwood
HMS Collingwood is the Royal Navy’s largest training establishment and headquarters to the Maritime Warfare School. The site was built in 1940 and has 2,500 personnel on site on any given day. The campus-style site is located on the edge of Fareham in Hampshire.
Over the years, the site has been maintained within the constraints of limited funding for infrastructure projects. Estate management has primarily focused on energy-saving schemes and maintenance contracts that are based solely on reactive ‘fail then fix’ measures.
In 2017, the site had an annual energy consumption of 45,402,057 kW and an estimated energy bill of £2,832,000.
Key facts
Timeframe: 6 months
Energy efficient internal LED lighting installed in 50 buildings on campus
Building Management System installed to optimise heating performance
£530,000 and 560 tCO2e saved per annum for the campus
A reduction in energy usage of 3.8 Gigawatt hours on site (9% of sites annual usage).
Goole District Hospital
Goole and District Hospital is one of 3 hospitals that form Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust. Opened in 1988, it is home to the Goole neuro-rehabilitation centre, which treats patients with brain injuries and other neurological conditions from across the country.
In 2019, the site had an annual energy consumption of 7.5GWh and an energy bill of circa £350,000. MEP developed a decarbonisation plan for the site that demonstrated how a £2.8m investment could decarbonise the site by 66%.
Key facts
Timeframe: 10 months
Removal of existing coal fired boilers
New, fully integrated Building Management System
Improved hot water distribution system with plate heat exchangers
Energy efficient LED lighting installed across site
Building fabric upgrades – Cavity wall and loft insulation
Estimated savings of £250,000 and 1,387 tCO2e per annum for the hospital
A reduction in energy usage of 3.8 Gigawatt hours on site (9% of annual usage) 3.45 GWh per annum (45%).
HMP Elmley in Sheppey Prison Cluster
HMP Elmley is one of three prisons that form the Sheppey Cluster in Kent. It is a category B/C prison opened in 1992 housing up to 1,150 prisoners. The other two prisons nearby that make up the cluster are HMP Standford Hill and HMP Swaleside.
Over the years, the site has been maintained within the constraints of limited funding for
infrastructure projects. Estate management has primarily focused on energy-saving schemes and maintenance contracts that are based solely on reactive ‘fail then fix’ measures.
In 2018, HMP Elmley had an annual energy consumption of 19,303,395 kWh and an energy bill of £984,160.
In April 2019 MEP developed a decarbonisation plan for the site that demonstrated how a £18.8m investment could reduce annual carbon emissions from the site by 81% by 2032. This was based on implementation of a range of energy efficiency measures followed by a transition to a district heating system, powered by on site, or adjacent to site, wind and solar power.
Key facts
Timeframe: 22 months.
Energy efficient LED lighting installed across campus.
Building Management System restored to optimise heating performance.
Estimated savings of £354,000 and 362 tCO2e per annum for the campus.
A reduction in energy usage of 2.2 Giga Watt hours on site (6% of sites annual
usage).
The Solution
Findings and recommendations from the Modern Energy Partners programme are available in the report – Testing the practicalities of public sector decarbonisation – (available to download below).
The overall conclusion: that for the public sector to meet commitments it must rapidly scale up its decarbonisation activities.
Energy Systems Catapult has refined and sharped learnings from Modern Energy Partners to create the definitive Public Sector Decarbonisation Guidance – with step-by-step guidance, insights, tools, templates, case studies and recorded webinars available launched in early 2023.
Topics covered included:
Strategy – management, planning and governance
Data – the importance of smart energy data management, including metering/sub-metering, data monitoring and analytics
Information Gathering – site visits/maps, baselining/benchmarking and data capture
Concept Design – technological options, calculators for different interventions and engineering
assessments
Energy and Cost Modelling – developing, modelling and writing up solutions, linked to business case development
People – skills, capabilities and capacities, supply chains and procurement
Costs – financial planning, business cases and funding.
Public Sector Decarbonisation Guidance
Accelerating carbon emissions reduction across public sector buildings, sites and estates… with simplicity, speed & scale
MEP worked across a testbed of 42 sites, developing 24 decarbonisation plans that would deliver a 70% emissions reduction for an average of £12.6m per site.
Deliver decarbonisation projects at scale that enable rapid reduction in carbon emissions.
In recognition of its real-world impact, helping to reduce emissions and make energy savings across the public sector estate, the Modern Energy Partners programme won the award for Best Collaboration at the Government Property Awards 2022.
Award judges said: “MEP was an ambitious collaborative programme. Without the input of the wide rage of stakeholders involved, the programme could not have delivered the impressive range of outputs and impacts.”
Our Sitesplatform emerged from MEP, allowing Energy Systems Catapult to adapt methodologies to make energy savings and cut emissions across public, commercial or industrial estates with award-winning teamwork, ground-breaking guidance and the latest innovative thinking, including:
Decarbonising Public Sector sites
Decarbonising Commercial and Industrial sites
Driving real-world impact with Data you can depend on.
Figure 1: Modern Energy Partners impact at a glance.
Read the Report
Modern Energy Partners: Testing the practicalities of public sector decarbonisation
Download
To download this file, we would be grateful if you could tell us a little about yourself.
We use this information for internal research purposes to help us better understand which energy sector stakeholders are interested in which areas of our work. We do not share your details with any third parties.
We help you to make energy savings and cut emissions across public, commercial or industrial estates with award-winning teamwork, ground-breaking guidance and the latest innovative thinking.