Key facts
- 371k people in the city
- 100 sq km area
- 25% cost savings target
Customer Challenge
As our cities adapt to rising population, urbanisation, digitalisation and decarbonisation, municipal authorities are seeking more innovative ways to give citizens reliable, efficient and cost-effective infrastructure services.
The concept of ‘smart local energy systems’ is one such response to these challenges. A major UK city council won a competition to secure innovation funding that would enable them to develop a smart local energy system in its area – an excellent test bed for the city’s long-term sustainability ambitions.
It’s one of 10 similar projects taking place in the UK to demonstrate how modern industrial cities can use devolved power to deliver clean growth while reducing energy bills. In this project, the objective is to achieve a 25% cost reduction for consumers, take a huge step towards achieving the city’s net zero target and improve the lives of its 370,000+ people.
Our Solution
Enzen is collaborating with the city council, a power distribution company, a gas distribution company, two universities and two small-to-medium enterprises to deliver a solution. The vision is to create a smart cross-energy vector system that integrates heat, power, transport, data analytics and technologies into a single intelligent system, and which incorporates a nearby waste-to-energy plant and autonomous vehicle trial.
Building upon a smart local energy system implemented at a university campus which reduced energy costs by 32%, Enzen and its partners are now scaling this model city-wide. In addition to designing the system’s infrastructure, Enzen will deliver its financial investment model, plus oversee the project management of related workstreams including customer and stakeholder engagement, data foundation and organisational design.
Along with the technical design and overall project management, Enzen is also shaping the solution for market, facilitating and incentivising future investment to accelerate the city’s drive towards net zero.
Outcomes delivered
The smart local energy system will deliver best value for citizens and serve as a best practice example for other UK cities as they plan for more sustainable futures. By enabling real-time trading between the city’s heat, power and transport assets, the new system will ensure each service can be optimised for greater efficiency, value and affordability.
The outcomes will be cleaner air and a low-cost, low-carbon energy system for the city. Citizens will also enjoy wider infrastructure choices, all controlled locally, offering more convenient services and greater opportunities for communities, businesses and investors to support the city’s infrastructure.
On a wider level, the system drives economic growth in the clean energy and future mobility sectors, fulfils the city’s energy cost and carbon targets, and supports the UK’s mission to achieve net zero by 2050.