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(l-r) Chris Brierley, Energy Systems Catapult; Emily Wilson-Gavin, SSEN; Rory Matthews, Greater Manchester Combined Authority and Utility Week editor James Wallin at Utility Week Live
Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) has estimated its target of being carbon neutral by 2038 will attract £64 billion of investment into the area.
The authority cited the figure as an example of the economic potential that can be unlocked by local area energy plans (LAEPs).
Rory Matthews, senior policy and partnerships officer at GMCA, spoke to Utility Week as part of our Make It A LAEP Year campaign, which is calling on the next government to mandate and fund LAEPs for all councils in England.
LAEPs identify the optimum route for an area to meet its net-zero targets, identifying total costs of delivery, changes in energy use and emissions over incremental time periods.
GMCA completed 10 LAEPs for each of its districts, as well as a regionwide version, in 2022 after winning funding from Innovate UK. Matthews said that without this financial lifeline there would have been “absolutely no way” to complete the LAEPs.
The LAEPs identified specific targets, such as the need to fit one million heat pumps by 2038, with 116,000 by 2027, but also gave wider indications of pathways that could pursued.
GMCA used the LAEPs to then create a strategic outline business case for reaching carbon neutrality by 2038, which identified the £64 billion figure. Matthews said this would likely be a split of public and private finance.
He added: “It’s about how we’re able to now crowd in that investment, create shovel-ready projects that we can actually take to implementation and deployment.”
Describing the wider benefits of LAEPs Matthews told Utility Week Live: “Having that bottom-up formation of the plans on a street by street basis, so that we can see the different asset classes and the types of low-carbon technologies that need to come through in those specific areas, is extremely beneficial.
“The other thing to outline is the benefits of conjoining leaps. Across the 10 local authorities, there’s some district heat networks identified that would sit across the boundaries of different local authorities. For example, at the nexus of Trafford, Salford, and Manchester City Council’s there’s a really good dense urban area where heat networks would extend well. The fact we’ve done LAEPs for each of those areas as well as one overall has allowed us to identify the opportunities that creates.
“If LAEPs were mandatory across all of England then it’d be great to see the other wider benefits to those authorities that join up with the rest of the city region, and where we can take it from there.”
Speaking on the same panel at Utility Week Live, SSEN’s head of corporate affairs, Emily Wilson-Gavin, stressed the importance of LAEPs to energy networks, saying they provide “really important foresight”.
She said: “That bottom-up approach is so important because the solutions on the ground are going to be different for each area. It makes sense that those people who know their area inside out should be the ones producing the plans. We want to support them and give them the expertise and the framework to be able to plan their own futures. The LAEPs are a really valuable tool in doing that.”
LAEPs were developed by the Energy Systems Catapult, which is currently advising the Welsh government on a state-backed rollout of the tool across the country. Utility Week’s campaign calls for this approach to be mirrored across the border in England. The Catapult has estimated the upfront cost of supporting the remaining two thirds of local authorities in England that have not completed a LAEP at £40 million.
Councils have cited resource and budgeting constraints as barriers to completing a LAEP. Meanwhile, Ofgem’s creation of regional strategic energy planners (RESPs) to deliver broader local plans has also caused some to question the need for a LAEP.
Chris Brierley, senior advisor at Energy Systems Catapult, addressed this issue on the panel.
“We have had local authorities ask us why should we do this? Why can’t the DSO do it for us. And we’ve heard about these RESPs coming in, couldn’t they do it?
“The whole point is that bottom-up approach. Local areas get their own integrated plans based on their own data. The risk of a top-down approach is that it doesn’t pick up those individual needs.
“There was some really interesting work by Innovate UK a few years ago that showed a place-based approach to decarbonisation would cost less than a place-agnostic approach.”
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