Power Community energy
P
roject LEO is a £40m+ multi-stakeholder consortium making Oxfordshire one of the UK’s largest testbeds for local energy systems. Announced in April 2019, it is funded by the Industrial Strategy Challenge fund (£13.8m) which is managed by Innovate UK, and private funding from project partners (£26m+). To achieve net-zero goals by 2050, networks and operators must foster holistic and equitable approaches to tackling power, heat and transport systems. Operating locally, LEO will sync operations of the distribution network operator (DNO) Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) with industry partners such as EDF, Origami and Piclo, and local energy initiatives through the Low Carbon Hub. This partnership aims to extract value from innovative market platforms and flexibility services.
Locally driven Trialling local energy systems is a core element of LEO, with its partners developing complex stakeholder engagements to provide smart and fair solutions to network constraints and grid decarbonisation. Findings will inform policy at a national scale, with the replicability of activities being embedded into the project’s framework. SSEN leads the project via monitoring of local primary and secondary substations in Oxfordshire. The University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University, the local county and city councils, and the Low Carbon Hub are also major partners. The Low Carbon Hub, a social enterprise supporting community energy projects, has a diverse portfolio of generation and renewable energy assets in Oxfordshire. This allows LEO to engage with local communities
and test the impact of local flexibility services on reducing grid constraints. Initial findings have already helped SSEN to better understand its transition from DNO to distribution system operator (DSO), where networks work to enable the provision of flexible services to connected communities. As it evolves to being a DSO in the wider energy network, SSEN has incorporated its TRANSITION project into LEO for the facilitation of new energy markets such as peer-to-peer trading and demand-side response services. LEO and TRANSITION will thus catalyse local energy transitions through a neutral market platform to provide enhanced and flexible network services to communities and commercial assets.
Agile ecosystems The UK’s energy transition will gain empty outcomes without the strategic
Redesigning the energy system at a local level The UK needs energy systems that are cheaper, cleaner and consumerfriendly. Project LEO (Local Energy Oxfordshire) has the potential to show just how innovation can deliver this energy ambition for the future, say Masao Ashtine and David Wallom at the University of Oxford
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