Project Summary

Project LEO-N addresses the:  Accelerating decarbonisation of major energy demands challenge by developing an innovative approach to create an enabling environment for homes, businesses and communities to transition to net zero, at the pace and scale to deliver the Oxfordshire’s targets.   LEO-N will develop Smart and Fair Neighbourhoods from Project LEO which demonstrated flexibility services sitting at the heart of a smarter, locally-balanced energy system. The proposal is framed around:

FutureFit – helping consumers decarbonise   

The Low Carbon Hub’s existing retrofit services, Cosy Homes Oxfordshire and Energy Solutions Oxfordshire, will be developed into FutureFit products, to identify a route for each home and business to be transformed into its own flexible energy system. Futurefit will see a new approach to identifying, installing, and funding a coordinated set of building fabric and smart technology options. Without this support, measures may be installed piecemeal, without proper integration reducing overall effectiveness. 

Helping Communities Transition

Futurefit will be expanded to community level and beyond with local coordination enabling trading of flexibility and energy services in a Smart Community Energy System (SCES).   LEON will identify options to allow this to be implemented across multiple communities to achieve a county-wide impact. 

Impact on the future electricity network: 

Building on SSEN’s work in Project LEO, we will evaluate the network impact of large scale implementation of FutureFit.  A key innovation will be how behind the meter measures proposed can be optimised to maximise the use of the existing network and better inform future DNO investment. 

New Institutional options for delivery and how nested local area energy planning can support the transition

We will build on the trial Local Area Energy Plan (LAEP) for Eynsham that showed how digital  tools developed in Project LEO could be extended to do place-based, whole system energy planning from the street level up to the county level.  An institutional architecture is necessary to manage actionable delivery strategies at speed and scale.  We hypothesise ‘Local Convenor’ and “System Coordinator” roles to provide this.

Our partnership brings together a wealth of expertise:

• Southern Electric Power Distribution – DNO
• University of Oxford – energy system expertise
• Low Carbon Hub – local energy business; product innovation; community partnerships.
• Oxfordshire and Oxford City Councils – integration of LAEP, and retrofit expertise
• Baringa Partners –market expertise 

The potential users include councils, networks, and community energy businesses. Discovery is intended to deepen our understanding of user needs to enable delivery at scale. 

Innovation Justification

To achieve net zero at the pace required needs transition at scale, with the integration of new low carbon technologies (LCTs) and improvements in the energy performance of buildings. Current progress is too slow and a fresh approach is needed. Earlier work in Project LEO has shown that flexibility services can contribute to a local zero carbon energy system and that high quality local area energy planning is crucial. Whilst there is a proven list of retrofit options available for consumers along with new LCT options, there is little support to help identify the best options, how to trade at community level and there is no supporting organisational infrastructure to drive delivery. Without this, progress is slow and uncoordinated, potentially resulting in inefficient use of the network.

Solving the problem:  

• Households and small businesses are helped to become FutureFit:  with support on best route for that premise including new financing mechanisms to allow them to transition to net-zero.
• Local coordination and trading lowers peak demand reducing constraints on the wider network.
• DNOs need new integrated building and network modelling to assess the impact of Futurefit measures on the LV network improving operational efficiency and reducing overall system costs.
• Enabling existing capacity to be used more effectively, potentially, avoiding the need for expensive reinforcement
• New arrangements to allow local actors to work together with DNOs to deliver whole system solution at scale

Project LEO-N takes a ‘systems innovation’ approach to this challenging problem:

• Developing new FutureFit products that are suitable for a diverse set of customers;
• Enabling local energy trading and flexibility services to manage demand;
• Creating new integrated building and network models to give a more complete understanding for DNOs, planners and communities;
• Using customer data and retrofit options along with recently developed spatial tools to identify new options to scale from street level solutions to county-wide strategies;
• Developing new institutional arrangements to support coordination and drive local delivery

The approach is risky because it takes a ‘systems innovation’ approach at the LV level where there are few available products, whole system planning tools or the local institutions to aid delivery.  Developing Futurefit into commercially viable products and services including technology and building options with appropriate financing options will drive adoption, derisking the transition for consumers. This combined with new local institutional arrangements will drive delivery at scale and allow DNOs to better plan and manage the network

Project Benefits

Throughout the project phases, the quantification of benefits will be refined from setting out the approach to Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) in Discovery including defining the counterfactual, assumptions-based CBA in Alpha and using real-world data gathered during Beta stage to validate the assumptions and outcomes.

Financial - future reductions in the cost of operating the network

Measured by 

• savings (average £/customer) from deferral of network reinforcement in the project area.  Baseline for the future reduction on LV network reinforcement deferral based on the ED2 estimates scaled to the project area.
• Project LEO-N will give DNOs additional visibility of emerging network constraints, allowing more options to proactively manage future workload improving overall network efficiency.  

Financial - cost savings per annum on energy bills for consumers

Measured by a relative reduction in overall bills for households and businesses provided with FutureFit Products and Services, and local energy market trading services, when compared against historic costs and/or premises with no equivalent measures fitted., considering vulnerability of customers. 

Revenues - creation of new revenue streams

Measured by number of new revenue streams:

• made more readily available to domestic and small business  customers from FutureFit Services and Products via local trading and access to wider flexibility markets.
• created in supply chain from supply, installation, operation and maintenance of FutureFit measures.
• Jobs created to enable FutureFit, and function of the Local Convener
• number of financial products created for businesses delivering FutureFit 

New to market – products, processes, and services.

Measured by

Number of products, processes and services 

• developed through FutureFit Products and Services
• number of funding routes available to households and businesses for decarbonisation
• created through introduction of local energy trading markets
• created through the development of framework for local convenor and its interaction with LAEP

Environmental - carbon reduction – direct CO2 savings per annum against a business-as-usual counterfactual 

Measured by (tCO2e) emissions reduction average per customer from reduced energy use.

Environmental - carbon reduction – indirect CO2 savings per annum against a business-as-usual counterfactual

Measured by (tCO2e) emissions reduction average per customer from not importing grid-generated electricity.

Additional metrics including indicators on housing stock improvement (e.g. average EPC rating), electrification of LCTs and DERS like EVs, Air source heat pumps, renewable electricity supply (e.g. GWh per generation type) and use of flexibility (e.g. % of households participating) will be used to assess the pace of progress on decarbonisation. These will be further developed as the project progresses.