£10.2 Million Green Eastern Energy Project

As the green revolution accelerates, the University of East London (UEL) is leading a consortium to help eastern UK businesses and organisations to decarbonise communities, buildings and transport more rapidly.

While organisations are responsible for decarbonising energy infrastructure under their control, it is proving difficult to decarbonise in real markets at the speed and scale to avoid dangerous climate change.

The Eastern New Energy (ENE) project is collaborating with business (particularly SMEs), councils, housing associations, communities, universities and other research bodies as well as households and individuals to better understand the barriers to decarbonising their communities, buildings, transport and lives. The project is part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). It is helping businesses develop new technology, while also analysing barriers to uptake of low carbon practices with practical solutions on the ground.

The programme covers the counties of Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Rutland and parts of Lincolnshire and Essex.

Opportunities

Two of six proposed innovation cluster projects (ICPs) are speeding ahead. First, accelerating the decarbonisation of industrial parks and trading estates. In theory, trading estates present excellent opportunities for energy efficiency, generation and storage. In practice, most of these opportunities go unrealised.

The second ICP is in data. Poor information or gaps in information lead to delays, inaction and poor decisions and misallocation of investment. The ENE project is assessing how to unlock the value of data to help accelerate smart decisions on green strategies.

“We are looking for specialists to join our team in enhanced energy monitoring, industry-based collaboration, data trust development and impact assessment to work with us to deliver this exciting and ambitious project as we help the east of England region move towards net zero,”

Professor Darryl Newport, director of the Sustainability Research Institute at UEL, said.

For more information on the project and on any of the upcoming opportunities with ENE, please contact ene@uel.ac.uk .The ENE project is funded by the England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. For more information visit https://www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding