Regen is the technical assistance partner for policy and regulation on Innovate UK’s £60m Net Zero Living programme, supporting 52 local authorities from across the UK and Northern Ireland to navigate the local and national policy landscapes to help achieve their net zero ambitions.
Project duration: March 2024 – December 2025
Project lead: Mollie Atherton
Programme director: Poppy Maltby
Innovate UK’s Net Zero Living programme is helping local authorities address and overcome the non-technological barriers to net zero, including the policies, finance, planning, data and engagement needs that help local authorities take projects from concepts to realities to support placed-based decarbonisation.
It is supporting the 52 local authority led projects to accelerate progress to achieving their net zero goals. Local authority projects and initiatives involved in the programme include heat networks, community energy, retrofit one-stop shops and several other urban, suburban and rural net zero opportunities.
As the technical assistance partner for policy and regulation, our work is helping local authorities navigate the policy and regulatory barriers that might stand between them and project delivery, and more widely address some of the challenges in national policy frameworks to unlock shared barriers to delivering local net zero.
As part of our package of work, we have established five policy groups, based on some key topics that local authorities are exploring:
The policy groups are platforms for local authorities to explore shared challenges in the thematic areas, discuss and generate potential reforms to policies and regulations that could help ease those challenges, and invite expert speakers to share their learnings with the members.
The groups meet quarterly as a minimum and, each quarter, produce outputs that either help build knowledge about policy across the whole Net Zero Living programme, produce policy insights that Net Zero Living participants can share throughout their wider organisations or develop consultation responses that help shape policy direction.
Regen is working with Energy Networks Association to develop a report looking at how energy networks and local authorities can better collaborate on local net zero planning and delivery.
Project manager: Mollie Atherton
Exploring the various points of interaction between local authorities and energy networks, this project focuses on understanding more about the relationships, processes, technologies and innovations that enable local authorities and networks to share planning information and align local planning with network planning and investment.
The project is the starting point for ongoing work by Energy Networks Association to help drive consistency across how the networks engage with local authorities, particularly about topics like open data, strategic planning, connections and innovation.
Regen has engaged more than 30 local authorities through interviews and workshops to gather their insights about the engagement process and to understand from a local authority perspective what best practice looks like.
The report will be published in December 2023.
Somerset Council commissioned Regen to develop a county-wide energy plan that would forge a roadmap to achieving its Climate Emergency Strategy objectives. It would identify investment projects and establish an evidence base for future partnerships and funding opportunities as well as set out how the council might work with community energy organisations, the private sector and other stakeholders to invest and grow renewable energy in Somerset.
Project duration: May 2023 – March 2024
Project lead: Tamsyn Lonsdale-Smith, Senior Energy Analyst
The Somerset Energy Investment Plan covers all of the geographic area of Somerset and addresses the Somerset Climate Emergency Strategy’s commitment to develop an energy strategy, which follows three key objectives:
The project involved several work packages, including a GIS database of renewable energy opportunities, an assessment of the Somerset energy system and associated emissions, and analysis of council-owned assets and locally owned renewable generation to benchmark against targets.
The second phase was to deliver an energy roadmap to reach net zero carbon goals out to 2030, 2040 and 2050. A review of policy commitments informed the development of a strategic low-carbon energy pathway that utilises local opportunity to reduce emissions in line with the council’s ambitious goals.
The project also included an economic benefits assessment that identifies investment projects and an evidence base for future partnerships and funding opportunities.
The final report was published at the end of March 2024.
Regen has worked with Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) and the Isle of Wight Council to develop a load growth evidence case to enable investment in the island’s electricity network.
Project duration: May 2022 – June 2023
Project lead: Ray Arrell, Head of Future Energy Systems
The study’s core output was to provide a written evidence case report, to support SSEN’s business plan application to Ofgem, to unlock additional investment in the electricity network supplying/on the Isle of Wight. This investment will unlock capacity to enable the Isle of Wight’s future growth/aspirations to expand renewable generation, low carbon technology adoption, electrification of other sources of demand and wider net-zero ambitions.
The study built on the analysis and granular future scenario projections that Regen produced for SSEN’s Southern England licence area, through the latest edition of their Distribution Future Energy Scenarios (DFES) assessment: https://www.regen.co.uk/project/ssen-distribution-future-energy-scenarios/
In May 2023, Regen worked with Isle of Wight Council and SSEN to publish the summarising report for the electricity load growth analysis and evidence case for additional network investment:
For further information on this project, please contact Ray Arrell, Head of Future Energy Systems, rarrell@regen.co.uk
Regen is working with Plymouth City Council to review the decarbonisation opportunities in the Plymouth waterfront area.
Project duration: April 2022 – August 2022
Project lead: Olly Frankland
The path to decarbonise the UK will require local authorities to set out specific plans to decarbonise their areas based on their unique resources and geography. Regen is working with a range of local authorities and stakeholders in order to progress this area. For example, the Local delivery of clean heat project and established Distribution Future Energy Scenarios (DFES) delivery for network operators.
Regen is supporting Plymouth City Council (PCC) to develop a strategy for decarbonising the waterfront area in Plymouth. The analysis aims to support PCC’s ambition, set out in its Climate Emergency Declaration, for Plymouth to be net zero carbon by 2030.
Our approach uses concepts underpinning local area energy planning together with the scenario planning framework and data used in the DFES for Western Power Distribution (WPD).
The project is funded by the Community Renewal Fund.
We are delivering the work in two phases:
For further information on this project, please contact Olly Frankland, Senior Project Manager, ofrankland@regen.co.uk
