Public Sector Decarbonisation Design and Feasibility

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

Design and Feasibility

These guides and tools will enable you to appraise technical options, then design and prioritise projects for the delivery of your decarbonisation strategy.

Development of a detailed feasibility study for one or a suite of investible decarbonisation measures, aligned to the project brief. Securing budgets and determining project timescales.

Who should use this guidance?

This Public Sector Decarbonisation Guidance was commissioned by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), formerly the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the Cabinet Office 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.

VIDEO: Design the projects for your decarbonisation strategy

Main Guide - Feasibility and design

As part of your strategy development, you should have a clear picture of your estate, emissions and the prioritised projects you wish to take forward. This guide covers undertaking feasibility and design studies, including information on the different types of studies and how to ensure they support your funding applications and ultimately reduce CO2 emissions.

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.

If you do not wish to complete the form, please email communications@es.catapult.org.uk to request a digital copy.

First name* Last name* Email* Organisation type:* How did you hear about us?*

If 'Other', please specify:

Job title Organisation name

I want to receive a monthly newsletter email on the latest insights in energy innovation

Design & Feasibility: Extra Guides

Discover five available guides

AVAILABLE NOW

Local Distribution Network Operator (DNO) capacity guidance
Decarbonisation Pathway Report
Site survey and building audits guide
Site energy demand estimator guide
How to treat technologies and what to ask for

Local Distribution Network Operator (DNO) capacity guidance

A guide on how to establish, at a high level, what the local Distribution Network Operator (DNO) electricity capacity is for a site.

Decarbonisation Pathway Report

An example of the output of decarbonisation planning activity, providing a carbon reduction pathway for a site using visual and quantitative information to enable decarbonisation planning and detailed design activity, allowing carbon neutrality by 2050.

Site survey and building audits guide

This guide provides a description of how to carry out a site survey along with a helpful checklist.

Site energy demand estimator guide

This document is the user guide for the ‘site energy demand estimator’.

How to treat technologies and what to ask for

This guidance covers the common technologies you might be considering as part of your decarbonisation programme, for example building fabric upgrades, heat pumps or energy storage. This guide provides information on how you might go about assessing their potential on your site.

Design and Feasibility: Tools and Tutorials

Discover six available tools and accompanying tutorials

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.

Public Sector Decarbonisation Guidance: Design and Feasibility

Plan for local grid capacity

Better estimate your site’s energy demand

Benchmark half-hourly energy use across building types