Modern Energy Partners (MEP) was a two-year, £20million innovation pilot exploring how to decarbonise complex  sites across the public sector estate to help Government reduce carbon emissions by 50% by 2032.

The project was a collaborative cross-departmental programme, coordinated and delivered by Energy Systems Catapult and funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Cabinet Office, with additional match funding from pathfinder sites.

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

MEP developed Public Sector Decarbonisation Guidance – systematic, repeatable and scalable approaches to decarbonising sites. Firstly, the rapid deployment of data gathering technologies and techniques to appraise the net zero potential of sites – including installing telemetry across 23 sites.

Secondly, a range of tools and templates allowing sites to develop decarbonisation plans – including plans for 24 sites to reduce emissions on average by 70% by 2032. Thirdly, MEP carried out initial carbon reduction works at the three pathfinder sites – including installing 21,515 LEDs light bulbs and smart Building Management Systems that now control 176,990 m2 of buildings.

Energy Systems Catapult  is management contractor for the £16.5 million Electrification of Heat (EoH) demonstration project on behalf of the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

The EoH project aims to overcome barriers to deployment and demonstrate the feasibility of a large-scale roll-out of heat pumps in Great Britain.

The Catatpult is managing three delivery contractors in three locations:

• South East of Scotland – lead delivery contractor Warmworks working with Energy Savings Trust and Changeworks.
• Newcastle – lead delivery contractor E.ON working with Newcastle City Council and Your Homes Newcastle.
• South East of England – lead delivery contractor Ovo Energy working with Kaluza, RetrofitWorks, Parity Projects and SunAmp.

The recruitment and installation phase of the EoH project ran from July 2020 through to October 2021, and despite the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, 742 heat pumps were installed into a broad spectrum of housing types and socio-economic groups, that reflects a representative sample of households across Great Britain.

Outputs derived from the project will include:

• Evidence on heat pump suitability across a range of housing archetypes, including system and installation costs.
• Real-world performance data for heat pumps and demand profiles across a range of housing and consumer types.
• Insights found to inform future government policy in this area.

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Rethinking Electricity Markets is an Energy Systems Catapult initiative to develop proposals to reform electricity markets to best enable innovative, efficient, whole energy system decarbonisation.

We need to reform electricity markets and market mechanisms so that they bring forward innovation and investment in a more efficient mix of low carbon generation, network enhancements and flexibility.

In developing proposals to reform electricity markets, we have:

• Worked collaboratively and interactively with a range of stakeholders with different perspectives and expertise
• Drawn on our capabilities to analyse and understand the challenges of whole energy system decarbonisation
• Drawn on our experience in working with innovators and local energy projects
• Shared and tested our emerging insights on a regular basis.

One of the key outcomes was out Locational Pricing study commissioned by Octopus Energy that showed reforms to make wholesale electricity markets reflect local conditions could save around £3bn per annum on average (circa £30bn in total) by 2035, as the UK transitions to a net zero grid.