Public Sector Decarbonisation Tools and Tutorials

Access the tools and tutorials for decarbonising the public sector estate

Public Sector Decarbonisation: All Tools & Tutorials

Who should use this guidance?

This Public Sector Decarbonisation Guidance was commissioned by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and the Government Property Function to help public sector bodies and their decarbonisation partners understand the best route to Net Zero. We aim to help deliver decarbonisation projects at scale, as well as support grant funding applications, to enable rapid progress on reducing carbon emissions.

This Guidance takes learnings from the Modern Energy Partners (MEP) programme and expertise from across Energy Systems Catapult to provide guidance on heat decarbonisation and energy management.

MEP was a £12.4m collaborative, cross-departmental innovation programme led by Energy Systems Catapult and funded BEIS’s Energy Innovation Portfolio. The programme was overseen by BEIS and the Cabinet Office, with additional match funding from the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Defence and NHS pathfinder sites.

The MEP programme focused on learning-by-doing, carrying out specific activities and generating consistent repeatable approaches for scalable delivery of decarbonisation, taking into account whole system thinking on high energy using campus-style sites.

Developing your Strategy: Tools & Tutorials

Develop a data-led organisational strategy to decarbonise your public sector buildings and sites

Discover five available Tools and their Tutorials for use

AVAILABLE NOW

Decarbonisation strategy documentation checklist
Understanding your timelines – template
Business as usual estimator
Decarbonisation intervention estimator
High-level decarbonisation intervention estimator
Net Zero organisational assessment

Decarbonisation strategy documentation checklist

A downloadable blank template that gives you all the checkpoints needed for a high quality decarbonisation strategy.

Understanding your timelines - template

A downloadable template that helps you work out your timelines for your decarbonisation programme.

Business as usual estimator

This estimator allows input of building, site or portfolio level energy consumption data. This will provide a baseline of energy use over time from which decarbonisation interventions can be assessed. It also allows for known future changes to the site to be captured and incorporated into the future assessments. This estimator tool comes with a user guide providing instructions for use.

Click here for a video tutorial on how to use this tool.

Decarbonisation intervention estimator

This estimator provides a range of key decarbonisation options, including heat, renewables and energy efficiency, which can be applied to your building, site or portfolio. This allows for quick assessment of potential benefits of implementing these interventions. This estimator uses the baseline data from the ‘business as usual’ estimator. This estimator tool comes with a user guide providing instructions for use.

Click here for a video tutorial on how to use this tool.

High-level decarbonisation intervention estimator

The high-level decarbonisation intervention estimator will provide a snapshot view of the potential benefits when considering a range of decarbonisation projects at a building or site level. This will be based on a single year’s consumption on site and will not offer a future view, however it can be used as a first step in identifying potential solutions for your building, site or portfolio. This estimator tool comes with a user guide providing instructions for use.

Click here for a video tutorial on how to use this tool.

Net Zero organisational assessment

This assessment tool identifies areas for improvement within your organisation’s operational model to unlock and support scaled delivery of decarbonisation.

Design and Feasibility: Tools & Templates

Develop detailed feasibility studies for investible decarbonisation measures, for example low carbon heating, aligned to your overall strategy

Discover six available Tools and Templates

AVAILABLE NOW

Site information gathering template
Half-hourly energy consumption benchmarks
BMS intervention estimator
Building fabric intervention estimator
Lighting intervention estimator
Site energy demand estimator

Site information gathering template

This template helps you to collate relevant site data as part of information gathering. It contains all the useful information that could be gathered with colour coding to help you easily differentiate between must-have information, should-have information and non-essential information.

Half-hourly energy consumption benchmarks

These half-hourly benchmarks have been created for different building use types on campus-style sites.

The benchmarks are produced as a result of a consistent approach to assessing decarbonisation for scaled delivery.

The benchmarks are a standard set that can be used to split aggregated site energy consumption into a building by building profile for representative days of the year.

The benchmarks have been created from data made available to Energy Systems Catapult whilst working with various public sector departments.

BMS intervention estimator

This tool provides an estimation of costs and energy efficiency benefits when you upgrade or install a new building management system (BMS) on a campus-style site or at an organisational portfolio level.

Using this estimator will provide a repository of site information represented in a consistent format.

Building fabric intervention estimator

This estimator is designed to support the assessment of site building fabric and give an understanding of relevant energy consumption on either a campus-style site or at an organisational portfolio level.

Using this estimator also provides a repository of site information represented in a consistent format.

Lighting intervention estimator

This estimator is designed to provide an estimation of costs and energy efficiency benefits of upgrading existing lighting to light-emitting diode (LED) lighting on a campus style site or at an organisational portfolio level.

Using this estimator also provides a repository of site information represented in a consistent format.

Site energy demand estimator

This estimator provides a breakdown of site energy demand, disaggregated at the building level by fuel source (Electricity, Gas, Biomass and Heat Network), based on aggregated site information and a series of benchmarked building types against which this is scaled.

Using this estimator provides site energy demand information in a consistent format.

Procurement: Tools & Templates

Identifying the right procurement and contracting approaches, and working effectively with your procurement team is vital to delivering the projects in your decarbonisation strategy

Discover three available Tools and Templates

AVAILABLE NOW

Sample specifications for technology deployment
Scope of services to support decarbonisation
Running a procurement event checklist

Sample specifications for technology deployment

This tool will help you to include the right information in your specification helping you to get a comprehensive quote for the works you require, and ensure that your project is delivered on time, on budget and as you expected.

Scope of services to support decarbonisation

This document can help you bring in specialists to support your decarbonisation programme by providing a template procurement specification.

Running a procurement event checklist

This checklist provides a quick reference guide for the four key stages of procurement; pre-tender, tendering, evaluation and handover. It sets out the considerations at each stage helping to make sure you don’t miss any key steps. It complements the main guide on procurement and the supporting guide on procurement event processes.

Funding: Tools & Templates

Securing funding sources and agreement on what to spend are key enablers to delivering your decarbonisation strategy

Discover one available Tool and Template

AVAILABLE NOW

Risk register template

Risk register template

A downloadable template that you can use to track risks, assumptions, issues and dependencies (RAID) associated with the installation of your public sector decarbonisation project.

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Public Sector Decarbonisation Guidance

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