Ideas That Happen - How West Suffolk is developing scalable models for the local energy transition

“We understand how solar works … so if we invest and own it, businesses don’t have to invest but still get the financial and environmental benefits”

The energy transition is an expensive proposition. BloombergNEF estimates that Europe needs €4.9 trillion of investment need for Europe by 2050. Much of this investment will be local, as the decentralised revolution takes energy generation ever closer to its point of use.

But many of the residents and local businesses who will have to make this local transition don’t have the expertise, time or money lying around to invest themselves.

So how can local authorities tasked with managing the local transition make it affordable for users and even profitable for the authority?

We sat down with Andy Oswald, Energy and Environment Strategy Manager at West Suffolk Council to learn how.

West Suffolk is a frontrunner in advancing the local energy transition. From one of the UK’s first partnerships with a peer-to-peer energy trading system to an effective and scalable solar leasing scheme for local businesses, West Suffolk are embracing the trailblazing activities that local authorities will need to take to make transition cost-effective.

As Andy tells us, embracing new types of energy business model is one method that local authorities should at be considering.

In this episode, Andy shares:

- How West Suffolk’s Solar for Business scheme has helped 78 businesses and counting access cheap solar power with no upfront cost
- How West Suffolk is using peer-to-peer energy trading through UrbanChain to provide clean energy to local buildings without the need for new physical connections
- How the role of energy management has switched entirely from goals of cheapest unit rates to a role defined active management and ambitious decarbonisation targets in just 15 years

Discussed in this episode:

00:00 - Coming Up
01:16 - Introduction
01:27 - How has your role changed?
04:20 - What net zero has meant for West Suffolk
09:15 - How do you get an ROI on the transition?
11:05 - West Suffolk's P2P trading scheme
16:03 - The role of software in the energy transition
18:10 - West Suffolk's Solar for Business scheme
23:41 - How is scalability important?
26:56 - What's your advice?
27:47 - What should people see in West Suffolk?