Green Gown Awards 2018 - The University of Nottingham - Highly Commended

Project SCENe looks to accelerate the adoption of community energy schemes, which can help promote the infrastructural, social and cultural changes we need to reduce the impact of climate change and increase energy security. It includes an urban solar farm, Europe’s largest community energy battery and local thermal energy production, distribution and storage.

The aim is to generate renewable energy and deliver grid services to the National grid, increasing efficiencies, reducing costs and decreasing the overall carbon emissions from the energy system.

SCENe’s vehicle is a new sustainable housing development on a large regeneration site on the banks of Nottingham’s River Trent. It brings together the energy supply chain with home occupiers, using novel community engagement tools and focusing on the development of business model templates to be used in other projects. The vision is to enable all future housing developments to embrace renewables to lower their energy costs and carbon footprint without the hassle for the homeowner or developer.

Top 3 learnings:

• Crucial to the work was to encourage and support the engagement of the consumers with the community energy scheme.
• Innovative and multiple means of community engagement are necessary to reach out to a wider audience.
• Key to research in this area is to mitigate barriers to more sustainable energy systems so they become mainstream and hassle-free.