Councils are staring into the abyss. Since 2022 five local authorities, including Europe’s largest in Birmingham City Council, have effectively declared themselves bankrupt. A recent poll by the Local Government Association showed one in five council leaders fear they will have to do the same this year or next.
Local area energy plans (LAEPs) are an important step in this journey, allowing councils to set out their blueprints for decarbonisation and keep utilities informed of their future requirements.
According to the Energy Systems Catapult, one in six local authorities have completed or are working towards LAEPs. However, for many councils the cost and internal resources needed to complete the plans have proved barriers to progress. There is little incentive from government either, with no statutory requirement to complete a LAEP.
The energy transition will only be successful if it takes into account the specific needs and pathways of each community. That is why Utility Week is launching the Make it a LAEP Year campaign, calling for government to mandate the process and provide funding for local authorities to complete their plans. According to the Catapult, the initial cost to the state would be £40 million.
This investment can be clearly justified by looking at the huge benefits LAEPs can bring in tackling many of the key challenges around the energy transition, including:
- Providing an evidence-based plan to underpin funding bids, identify and enable wider area benefits and to join up current plans and policies
- Identifying low-regrets projects and ‘focus zones’ where investment can be targeted initially, all set in the context of a longer term decarbonisation blueprint
- Tacking fuel poverty by facilitating energy efficiency measures and allowing local residents to benefit from the proliferation of cheaper renewable power and demand side response
- Helping to ease the queue to connect to the grid by giving networks line of sight on where upgrades will be needed
- Accelerating electric vehicle take-up by ensuring charging infrastructure is matching local demand
- Embedding whole systems thinking
- Boosting consumer engagement with net zero by properly engaging with their needs and by creating a swathe of local green jobs
The Make it a LAEP Year campaign will take this message to politicians of all parties to ensure that the importance of local net zero plans remain on the agenda of the next government. This will build on work Utility Week has already conducted alongside energy networks to understand the key painpoints for councils and how utilities can help to plug them.
This will involve a manifesto setting out why £40 million (to be paid for from general taxation) on funding LAEPs is one of the best long-term investments a government can make; case studies on how councils that have completed a LAEP have benefitted from the process and the views of utilities companies on where LAEPs can help them better plan local investments.
We will be asking Utility Week readers, comprising all the UK’s major utilities, to show their support by publicly backing this campaign and signing an open letter setting out its aims.
We will then be asking whoever forms the next government to listen to the evidence put forward and the strength of the backing. We need their help to make 2024 a LAEP year.