A £1 million eco-research project in Leeds promises to help other cities meet the massive challenge of planning for energy sustainability.
Cities are now expected to incorporate energy sustainability as an integral part of the planning process for major projects. This is a new responsibility, and many cities lack expertise and experience in energy issues, despite the rapid expansion of UK cities in recent years and the likelihood that this expansion will continue over the long haul.
A project worth over £1 million, led by engineers at the University of Leeds, together with colleagues from the University of Nottingham, will enable the development of tools necessary for planners to make these decisions.
“Traditionally planners were concerned with issues such as the appropriateness of proposed buildings and transport infrastructure,” said Professor William Gale of the School of Process, Environmental and Materials Engineering at Leeds. “Our cities have a huge impact on energy sustainability and economic competitiveness, so it’s vital that future energy needs are considered in the planning process.”
The project brings together academics from a range of disciplines, working with the different strands of complexity science – a field concerned with the evolution of physical and organisational systems and decision making.
“What this means is that we’ll be using expertise from a range of backgrounds,” added Professor Gale. “We’re not only looking at how much power will be needed and where it might come from, we’ll also be examining how decision making by multiple stakeholders – as is common in high density city areas – might affect the energy planning process.”
Funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the project is due to start in the autumn and has the potential to enable cities across the UK to deliver on targets set to support overall UK energy sustainability. The project has an informal collaboration with Leeds City Council to use the city as a test bed for its tools.
Dr Tom Knowland, Head of Sustainable Development for Leeds City Council says: "Leeds is working hard to create a sustainable city and our recently adopted climate change strategy identifies developing low carbon energy infrastructure as a priority. At the moment we only have a few examples of decentralised energy in Leeds, but we have the potential to do much more. This project with the University to develop a planning tool will help us with our ambition in this field."
“This is a three year project during which we hope to develop the basis of some simulation tools that could apply to any city in the UK,” explained Professor Gale. “These would model current energy usage and provide predictions of future energy needs and how these could be met as sustainably as is realistically possible.
“Leeds is a great city to use as a case study because it has changed enormously over the past 20 years and its development is continuing.”
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