The race to decarbonise is well and truly on, with both the ticking climate clock and rising energy bills placing additional pressures on national and local government businesses, and the public alike.

Area energy planning (in all its forms) is seen by some as another academic-styled deep modelling exercise to reach net zero carbon targets in the UK. But it’s much more than that. Work is happening right now to collate and understand the available data, to uncover the best techno-economic approach to decarbonise entire areas across the UK, ensure the right stakeholders are consulted and transform local energy systems in support of UK net zero carbon commitments.

Local Area Energy Planning (LAEP) is emerging as the de facto approach for whole energy system planning in England and Wales. Similarly, the Scottish Government has developed a methodology for Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategies (LHEES), which looks to empower local authorities to create zones for off-gas, on-gas and district heating areas, using a step-by-step Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping technique. The LAEP and LHEES are two great initiatives with the right intent that seem simple enough – but how does society actually make the energy transition happen?

There are inevitable imperfections in these processes that need addressing, including ensuring data is representative, getting to grips with finessing the decarbonisation methodology and delivering the end game – implementation. To make it happen in the real world, inclusively and politically, we need powerful and high impact policy.

At the moment, there is evolving guidance available on how to create a LAEP, such as advice from Energy Systems Catapult, which has great potential. For LAEPs, rather than randomly developing projects in an area, the intention is to look at the best integrated solution for an area by considering a range of stakeholders; it can include demand reduction, building and local generation or storage, upstream and downstream impacts in the area, coordinated change overtime, and presenting it in an easily accessible format.

While LAEP and LHEES provide the evidence base for change in an area, they don’t give final designs and delivery solutions for every building, energy asset and regional or national infrastructure. We need to detail the varying types of typical buildings in an area and find the sweet spot to meet the practical, environmental and economic realities. This information will help stakeholders and local authorities get a clearer understanding about energy systems in their own area, before making decisions on their infrastructure requirements and options.

Crucially, we also need to link to upstream constraints in the grid and energy generation, such as power capacity and space planning, which can be costly to upgrade to enable further electrification of transport and heating. We can do this by using the Infrastructure Transitions Analysis Model (ITAM), developed by Energy Systems Catapult with support from Buro Happold. This tool uses locally available data to help local authorities understand the implications of national energy system designs at a more local level, with a focus on the infrastructure required to deliver net zero systems. In addition, there also needs to be consideration towards how all this information is efficiently and economically procured.

Alongside all of this, a much stronger case is also needed to demonstrate the energy transition is good for society as a whole, across a broader set of socio-economic metrics, such as jobs, air quality, comfort and fuel poverty (for both building and transport users). With the UK’s 2050 deadline already looming, society and communities need to be brought along on the journey now. But there still isn’t enough being done to see a shift in behaviour, such as improving the energy efficiency of buildings, installing air or ground source heat pumps, or providing a charging network for electric cars.

This is why there needs to be long-term commitments from Government and the most influential stakeholders, such as the existing network operators, funders and industry, which are based on independent data analysis from the LAEP and LHEES. Long term commitments could include a long term coordinated fiscal package to support certain technologies, key projects and grid reinforcement to reflect emerging energy plans for an area. Some capital funding is available already, but operational support is also critical to reflect high energy costs and reduce fuel poverty.

Finally, we also need to take the number crunching and plans to the best policy makers in the UK and challenge them to develop new mechanisms to motivate all the stakeholders to move in lockstep.

Of course, all of this isn’t an easy task. We will only see change if engineers, economists, policy makers and all the necessary local authority and central Government stakeholders come together to create a suite of long term policies that are critical to make the energy transition towards decarbonisation happen – and sooner rather than later. No small ask, but it can be done!

Dr James Dickinson is director (Energy) at Buro Happold.