LONDON 24/7 CFE
(2022-2024)
London could achieve 9% annual carbon savings in 2030 if it activated its buildings to respond to carbon intensity, 24 hours a day 7 days a week. This would unlock 4-8 GW of flexible capacity that can also be used by the networks to balance the grid as an alternative to fossil fuel power plants. These are the findings of the 24/7 Carbon Free Energy London project in 2022-2023.
A pilot, designed during the project and now underway, will test the hypothesis that operating to a 'carbon signal' every hour will motivate energy decision makers to increase the "flexibility" of assets and buildings (to turn up or turn down), and we will get more flexibility, faster.
CARBON FLEX
(2019-2023)
Cities and local authorities are under pressure to rapidly achieve net zero, and to spend their limited funds in a way that decarbonises fastest.
Building on the learning from the Mayor of London’s FlexLondon programme, The Carbon Flex project will inform London's local authorities’ net zero planning, investment and operational decisions by evaluating the 'carbon gap' between how they use their built environment today - their buildings, offices or electric vehicles - and how they could use it to match their energy needs to renewable energy generation.
The project will also highlight barriers to achieving this and create a replicable process to run in any city in the world. Funded by Bulb Foundation.
NET ZERO SOUTHEND
(2021-2022)
Energy Unlocked is leading the team supporting Southend-on-Sea Borough Council deliver their Smart Local Energy System project REMeDY (part of the UK government’s Prospering from the Energy Revolution Challenge strategic innovation funding) and align this with the borough’s Net Zero 2030 target. The REMeDY Consortium consists of Southend-on-Sea Borough Council (Project Lead), SMS Plc, Vital Energi, Imperial College London, University of East Anglia, FutureGov and Places for People. Energy Unlocked (and partners Quant Energy and Apteno Consulting) supported Southend-on-Sea Borough Council, to engage the public about the role of energy systems in net zero, as well as supporting the research consortium to develop a case study on the project learning that is useful for the borough, but also for other areas in the country.
FLEX LONDON
(2018-2020)
EPIC
(2017)
Energy Unlocked led the team delivering the FlexLondon Challenge programme for the Greater London Authority since 2018. Delivery partners included Quant Energy, Eigen Ventures and Apteno Consulting.
The project built a community to accelerate flexible low-carbon energy to save boroughs in London money and reduce the city’s carbon emissions.
We worked with energy users and innovators; to support commercialisation of the built environment as a new flexible energy system resource.
The programme identified organisations that have the potential to use, generate and store energy at various times of the day or year, and matched them with innovators that can help manage this.
This helps London accommodate more renewable energy generation and manage additional demand on the grid which is being created by electric vehicles and the electrification of heat.
Supported by the Mayor of London, FlexLondon is part of his £34m Energy for Londoners programme which aims to make London’s homes warm, healthy and affordable, its workplaces more energy efficient, and to supply the capital with more local clean energy.
COALITION FOR URBAN TRANSITIONS
(2016-2021)
Energy Unlocked are working with Overseas Development Institute and Stockholm Environment Institute to develop the energy workstream of the Coalition for Urban Transitions. The programme explores the role of city governments vis a vis national governments in an increasingly decentralised energy transition
DISRUPTERS AND EARLY ADOPTERS WORKSHOP
(2018)
EXERGY
(2016-2017)
EUROPE & ENERGY INNOVATION
(2017-2018)
To help define a 2-year agenda for a disrupter and early adopter community in Europe, we convened businesses, experts and government to discuss the challenges and opportunities in increasing renewable energy integration through flexibility, transactive energy, new data-driven business models and private sector innovation to drive energy system change. The workshop was hosted by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Science and Innovation Network, Energy Unlocked and WindNODE, a 70-member German consortium representing the value chain of electricity focused on renewables integration.
The Workshop was part of Nordic Clean Energy Week, hosted in conjunction with the 3rd Mission Innovation conference and the 9th Clean Energy Ministerial.
EPIC
(2016)
Exergy is a project founded by LO3 Energy to bring blockchain’s decentralized digital ledger technology to create a permissioning and data sharing platform that supports the acceleration of localized marketplaces for transacting energy across existing grid infrastructure. Energy Unlocked were part of the founding team in 2017 and continue to closely advise the project.
Get in touch if you’re interested in energy data governance.
A series of engagements to encourage cross-border European collaboration supported by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office Science and Innovation Network, starting at the 2018 Clean Energy Ministerial in Malmo, Sweden, where Energy Unlocked hosted a workshop to identify a 2-year innovator agenda. Key themes emerging were the need for more granular spatial and temporal data for innovators to encourage demand-side flexibility and data governance. Follow on engagements at European Utility Week in 2018 and the local energy-focused ‘Flex-ergy’ workshop in Copenhagen continues to bring project developers, innovators, network operators and governments together.
We reached out to 200 companies, conducted 25 in-depth interviews, developed 5 'Requests for Discovery' for corporations, and analysed CDP data on over 7000 reported energy efficiency actions. The new results from data reported to CDP on energy efficiency actions from over 7,000 companies, 25 in depth interviews and 5 discovery processes.
Energy Unlocked’s first initiative spanned the globe and found 100 companies capable of doubling energy productivity with their solutions, 10 business model types were categorised and results were shared to policy makers and industry, with help from our partners from the Alliance to Save Energy and The Climate Group, with major events at the International Energy Agency and COP22 in Marrakech.
See all the information about the programme, platform and results.