The STEEP project (Systems Thinking for comprehensive city Efficient Energy Planning), is a two year project co-funded by the EU under the 7th Framework Programme (FP7), which aims to develop a new approach to energy master-planning.
In terms of Bristol, the ‘Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone’, has been identified as our area of focus, and we are looking to attract as many occupiers as possible to take part in the project and make the energy master-planning process a success.
As part of the project, the city council’s ‘ Future Cities team’ are working in collaboration with the University of Bristol as well as the local authorities in San Sebastian and Florence to develop an innovative approach to identifying and implementing energy efficiency measures in an identified district within the three cities.
In January next year, the STEEP project team will be hosting a launch event to start to raise awareness of the project amongst occupiers and stakeholders within the TQEZ itself with a view to holding regular stakeholder events throughout 2014.
The project will build upon and develop the energy master plan work that has already been undertaken by Centre for Sustainable energy, as well as the ongoing infrastructure audit carried out by Mott MacDonald.
The project will use a new ’systems thinking’ approach to understand how energy is used, managed and could be made more efficient in the Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone. This learning will then be applied at a city level, to create an energy master-plan for Bristol as a whole. This approach aims to give stakeholders an opportunity to explore the potential barriers to implementing efficiency measures and share knowledge and understanding of what organisations can do to reduce their carbon emissions.
In terms of its potential benefits, the project will provide:
• Knowledge, expertise and training provided by the University of Bristol regarding a ‘systems thinking’ approach to comprehensive energy master-planning.
• An ongoing series of workshops that will not only inform the project of how energy is used by occupiers, but provide feedback from relevant professionals as to how organisations may reduce their energy consumption and potentially achieve financial savings.
• An opportunity to share energy data and discuss the potential barriers that are faced in implementing energy efficiency measures.
• Ongoing support through these workshop sessions on how best to remove these barriers, how to implement solutions and how to measure their success.
• Access to an online data visualisation tool which will map how energy is used in the zone and what might be done to mitigate the effects of this consumption.
• An opportunity to shape the future design of the TQEZ and contribute to the discussion of what could and should be included to achieve the ambition of a ‘zero carbon’ zone.
We hope that as part of project STEEP, we can share the expertise of all relevant council departments as well as internal and external stakeholders to develop a comprehensive approach to achieving the city’s ambitious carbon reduction targets.
We will be providing further updates about the project and the launch event in January, but for further information regarding STEEP , please contact Jon Brookes: jon.brookes@bristol.gov.uk. Tel no. 01173521409
