The Ghana GOALs project will create self-sustaining smart energy communities with access to clean renewable energy and innovative cooking technology, resulting in improved air quality and better working conditions, especially for women and girls. Ghana GOALs will test a new concept for modern cooking, reducing the reliance on foraged firewood and kerosene. This will be combined with the creation of electrical microgrids, using solar photovoltaic panels (PV) and storing energy overnight in batteries. These will be trialled at selected secondary high schools and in an off-grid community to evaluate different business models for replication. For the cooking trials, two schools will be selected from a potential pool already identified: an all-girls school and a mixed school. Gender equality and diversity will be a key factor, and educational materials created will help change preconceptions related to cooking. Whilst some practical testing of the innovative cooking pots is currently in progress by one of the partners, KNUST, this has not been deployed at scale or the business models investigated. Using modern cooking techniques will also free up time spent in collecting firewood and managing the stove. Since 70-80% of cooking is wood or kerosene fired in Ghana, reductions in carbon and smoke emissions will also be significant with environmental and health benefits. To help ensure financial viability, the project will test automated fraud detection and pre-payment for electricity, as part of the transition to 'smart grids' needs to monitor and meter energy consumption. Ghana GOALs' key objectives are to develop: 1. Fraud-resistant net metering solutions with the Electricity Company Ghana for microgrids. 2. The business concept of communal cooking in both a schools' programme and a local community. Two large cooking facilities can feed up to 550 pupils/people. 3. Smart microgrids to optimise use of renewable energy and enable a decision tree analysis to evaluate how the grid is used. The Ghanaian partners KNUST and EEK have already deployed a PV and battery microgrid at one site (Yeboahkrom). However, this does not yet include modern cooking or net metering, and related business models have not been designed or evaluated. The solution also has the potential for roll-out across sub-Saharan Africa.

Our project will focus on the development of a specification that the energy sector (end users, energy suppliers, traders, technology platform providers and associated ancillary services) can use to create an end-to-end trading solution from local building level to national energy markets. This will enable organisations of all types and sizes to realise maximum energy and cost savings through the use of an innovative trading platform, whilst also reducing the need for costly grid reinforcement by better balancing available energy demand. Currently, there are many suppliers responsible for supplying energy to buildings. They need to keep their energy supply balanced with individual site needs and demands, which in turn can impact the National Grid and the amount of energy needed to be generated at any time. Each energy supplier has their own systems and approaches to maintain this equilibrium. Our project will develop a common framework specification for the key technology integrations required to enable trading between energy suppliers and among their customers from local to national level. This specification will also create opportunities for energy bill reductions of up to 25% by optimising the use of energy in the whole system by better balancing demand and supply at a local level and by developing multiple microgrids. The innovative key technology component will be the specification of the integration between local and national electricity markets across a number of different energy suppliers using a common process. Our solution will have the ability for different buyers and sellers of energy and flexibility to trade using a common interface. A common set of standards harmonising the disparate processes that are emerging will give confidence to end users in industry, commerce and the public sector. With increasingly intermittent generation, such as wind and solar, and unpredictable charging by electric vehicles, greater optimisation and more accurate forecasting will be required throughout our whole energy system, reducing risks from unplanned power cuts and costly reinforcement of local energy supply networks. The project will consider upcoming regulatory changes to the marketplace when designing the common specification and approach. This project is about liaising with the key organisations in the energy system to develop a common set of processes, to deliver huge energy cost savings to consumers across the UK, with great potential to export this approach globally.

GreenSCIES2 will produce a detailed design for a smart energy system to integrate new low carbon energy technologies across heat, power and transport that can be replicated across the UK. Building on learnings from the GreenSCIES1 feasibility study, the expanded consortium will develop innovative technical/business models for the provision of smart energy systems that significantly reduce whole system costs of energy, carbon emissions and result in significantly smaller bills for the end consumer. The smart energy grid will also help provide affordable warmth and reduce local pollution, with a clear path for replication elsewhere in the UK. The scheme concept is already seen as one of THE key future energy solutions for low carbon cities. The detailed design will provide an ultra-low 5th generation heat network with distributed low carbon heat pumps to supply heating/cooling using an ambient loop to exchange energy between buildings, enabling recovery of low-grade waste heat from data centres and the tube. Each of the decentralised energy centres will provide hubs for PV electricity supply, EV V2G charging/storage alongside large scale batteries. The hubs can then be used for Demand Side Response to flex with the electricity grid requirements/tariffs using a sophisticated AI based control system. This will be the first large smart energy system in the UK that integrates energy technologies across heat, power and transport, allowing wide-scale replication. This project is focussed in the London Borough of Islington but involves proving replication in the West Midlands and Sheffield. The project involves a large number of LBI residential blocks but also includes two data centres, a TFL ventilation shaft and a range of public/commercial buildings. GreenSCIES2 will also develop innovative business models for the provision of 'energy as a service' that help change consumer behaviour to reduce carbon emissions. This will be a community-based project with wide stakeholder engagement including local residents and businesses but also with policy makers and replicators. Research objectives include establishing a new replicable design methodology to reach smart energy systems. Also delivering legacy though a new academic 'Centre of Excellence' around heat networks and smart grids with extensive knowledge transfer through conferences, papers, and International engagement. GreenSCIES2 will deliver a detailed design which minimises technical/commercial risk/uncertainty, with commercial agreements in place and is 'shovel-ready' for implementation. This is an entirely innovative ground breaking project that will provide an investable low carbon scheme unique to the UK.

"The vision is to create a energy marketplace in the South Bank area with the desired outcome being socio-economic and environmental benefits. Specifically, there are under-exploited opportunities in micro-generation (including storage), demand side response, utilisation of heat networks and energy efficiency. New technologies will be central to our approach to reduce business risk and include energy storage, predictive algorithms and IoT sensors. There are two main locations: Waterloo where stakeholder are drawn from members of the South Bank Employers Group (SBEG, an association of the major organisations in the South Bank and Waterloo dedicated to achieving the best possible experience for employees, residents and visitors to the area) and London Bridge. The objective is to challenge the status quo and achieve disruption in an industry sector that has profited whilst at the same time not providing sufficient improvement in customer outcomes such as fuel poverty and air quality. ""Smart Buildings"" will help balance the local grid so that it is able to respond to shifts in local and national electricity demand and derive revenues. There is also the preparation of the coming transition to electric vehicles that will create new demand for energy supply. This is an opportunities to use vehicle batteries to improve the resilience of building energy supplies by deploying Smart Chargers which match supply and demand. By going ""off-grid"" using proven energy storage technology, this will improve security of supply as well as lower bills."