Asset Reuse and Recovery Collaboration (ARRC)  - Discovery Continuity will investigate the environmental and cost impacts both high value and high volume assets across electricity generation, transmission and distribution and consider current procurement, commissioning, use, and disposal practices. This project will establish different successful methodologies to extend asset life using circular economy principles with the aim to inform small and large scale demonstrations at later phases.

This project is in place to safeguard the delivery and continuity of the associated SIF project.

Benefits

This project will create the foundation for significant cost and carbon reductions in energy industry assets.

One of the expected outcomes of extending the life of assets is the reduction of resource use and consequently the reduction of expenditure across energy infrastructure users.

Working in collaboration with the value chain to support innovation and provide clear direction of travel from generators and electricity network providers will help to support the green economy, creating markets for circular assets. The scale of energy industry assets and the sizeable opportunities for the circular economy could have significant UK and global value.

for consumers, keeping assets in use and creating systems to facilitate repair and reduce obsolescence could potentially reduce network risk associated with offline assets, therefore improving network resilience. It will also deliver efficiencies that ultimately will reduce costs to consumers and will form part of the economic and social assessment.

In terms of resilience, current supply chain disruption has highlighted the importance of the UK reducing its reliance on overseas sources of raw materials. Reducing primary resource consumption (virgin materials) also reduces the procurement risks and potential supply constraints. 

there are huge environmental benefits associated with this solution and carbon reduction is our primary project objective. A key project outcome is to develop metrics to measure carbon reduction when circular interventions are employed.

The project will reduce the negative environmental, economic, and social impacts of mining raw materials, manufacturing, transportation, and asset’s end of first life disposal. The study will outline these benefits while taking a balanced approach to reviewing the potential negative impacts of keeping older resources on the network.

The project aligns with government policies on working towards net-zero carbon and landfill diversion targets, as well as developing policy on the circular economy. It aligns with the delayed Scottish Government Circular Economy Bill and regulatory commitments intended to drive net-zero carbon.