Liverpool faces complex, interconnected non-technical barriers to delivery of its transition to net-zero carbon energy. Led by Liverpool City Council (LCC), Phase Two will demonstrate an innovative systemic approach to dismantling these barriers, creating and demonstrating solutions that can be replicated across the city and the UK. The project covers multiple energy **vectors**, **barriers**, and energy **end-use sectors**. This great breadth is counter-balanced and channelled through specific **Exemplar Projects** -- a set of location-specific interventions identified in Phase One -- in which barriers are illustrated, and solutions demonstrated. Five sets of barriers are addressed across three energy vectors (power, heat, transport): 1) weak energy-end-user support; 2) inadequate economic models and investment case; 3) inadequate private/public capacity and skills to deliver city-wide; 4) a planning framework in need of change; and 5) scaling/ replication challenges ranging from inadequate supply chains to absent city-wide alignment. For example, whether for domestic heat and power or for electrifying moored shipping or public transport, the design and operation of energy networks remains a major barrier: 1) end-users need to understand the benefits resulting from disrupting their everyday priorities; 2) the economic case must be clear; 3) delivery capacity needs to be sufficient; 4) planning must allow for interventions; and lastly 5) their design must be replicable for use elsewhere. Two end-use sectors are in scope: 1) new residential and industrial development sites; and 2) domestic decarbonisation and retrofit. Exemplars include shore power (to replace heavy fuel oil use in moored shipping), ground-source heat from city parks to feed local heat networks, sheltered housing retrofit, city-centre listed buildings, leisure centre energy hubs, and a major new housing development. Findings will feed into innovative net-zero tools, for comparison of individual interventions on a like-for-like basis, as well as at city-wide / regional level to enable planning at the macro scale. The ClimateOS software proposed has a world-wide reach and will enable Liverpool to compare approaches with other cities in the UK, Europe and the US. The consortium comprises committed private, public and academic partners with the heft to deliver the Exemplars in a subsequent Phase Three. LCC is the key convenor and has a wide estate; Onward Homes owns over 6000 homes; SPEN owns and operates the local grid; Regent Capital is a locally active Asset Manager; and New Resource Partners and Decentralised Energy Solutions bring new net-zero software, completing an active partnership in place since 2020\.

Liverpool City Council (LCC) has published an ambitious, far-reaching and innovative Action Plan to deliver Net Zero Carbon energy use across domestic, commercial and industrial sectors and waste, but significant barriers must be dismantled for this to happen. We will create an innovative Delivery Plan incorporating new tools to overcome these systemic barriers and support delivery of Liverpool's Net Zero 2030 Action Plan. We will convene stakeholders and integrate private and public Net Zero programmes across Liverpool to avoid duplication and enhance productive collaboration. **Focus themes** include: 1. Financing: recycling of energy cost savings into dedicated fund targeting Net Zero projects with realistic business cases based on whole-life costs. 2. Capacity, capability and skills: expanding and resourcing the newly appointed LCC Sustainability Team, and exchanging best practice with partners. 3. Behavioural change: including changing attitudes to building temperatures, and modal shift to sustainable transport. 4. Regulatory barriers: inadequate requirements on commercial and industrial energy users to change their practices. 5. Governance: pulling together management teams and utility practitioners to ensure funding, support and delivery; compliance with quality standards; allocation and monitoring of responsibilities. 6. Common data standards: for open source and interoperability; to ensure consistent performance reporting; to provide robust evidence of progress and gaps in emission reductions. 7. Strategic grid reinforcement: partnering with SPEN to understand network capacity pinch points, their impact, and means of resolution. **Project tasks** include: * Convene public and private leads of / stakeholders in Net Zero projects across Liverpool City. * Prioritise existing projects in Liverpool against multiple criteria (e.g. value, market-readiness, CO2 impact, deliverability); and identify gaps in coverage. * Assess systemic barriers to domestic, commercial and industrial projects, across heat, power, transport and waste vectors. * Explore approaches with schools and universities to improve climate-related education, and prepare students for participation in the Net Zero economy. * Identify human, labour and capital resources needed to overcome barriers to delivery of Liverpool's NZC30 Action Plan. **Partners** Liverpool City Council will lead the development of a _Net Zero Delivery Plan_. The Council will weave together the many governance strands involved in Net Zero, such as Highways, Parks, Development, Estates, Finance and Street Services. New Resource Partners will lead the Phase One application, deliver project management, and support development of the Delivery Plan, alongside Onward Homes leading on barriers to domestic decarbonisation projects; and Decentralised Energy Solutions leading on regulatory and grid barriers. Key stakeholders include networks operators SPEN, and the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce.

This project offers the potential to accelerate clean energy access in Kenya and sub-Saharan Africa, including for disadvantaged and marginalised groups, and supporting gender equality, by creating new business models for "**Integrated Mini-grids**". In Kenya, energy off-take from mini-grid projects averages 40% (Knights Energy). Such projects often remain non-commercial, and require government funding, resulting in persistently low energy-access-rates (71.4%, World Bank). Mini-grid projects in Kenya average around 60kW, an investment of only £50-80k, and too small to be attractive to many private investors. The project directly targets **energy access** for presently unserved energy users, including marginalised, disadvantaged and groups such as women, the elderly and persons with disabilities. It does this through rendering rural mini-grids investable, and providing the means (software) for developers and investors to identify portfolios of many such projects, which will positively impact many more villages than presently reached by Kenya's rural electrification programmes. The primary energy input to the energy systems envisaged is solar, with some potential for small wind farms also. Clean energy technology is envisaged also on the demand-side of the energy systems, including electric vehicles. In addition to providing energy access, deployment of the business models envisaged will displace reliance on fossil-fired transport energy, leading to reduced local pollution of air, soil and water, and reduced CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels both in the production of electricity, and in the distribution of fuel. In addition static battery energy storage systems will be investigated to help balance the demand for energy in mini-grids with the timing of solar/wind supply. Finally, Demand Side Response (DSR) and other efficient demand management practices will be investigated for their balancing potential. The Project Partners include two Kenyan-headquartered and two European partners. **New Resource Partners** (NRP) is a local clean energy innovation business, advising national and local governments, and investors in clean energy, working in the UK, Europe and India. **Sustainable Transport Africa** (STA) is the in-country lead, an NGO whose core mandate is to promote energy access for the underprivileged through sustainable transport solutions. **VAI Capital** is an investment and fund manager specialised in sustainable transport, with focus on financing integrated energy and e-mobility projects for financial return and climate, economic and social impact. **Knights Energy** (Trading Name of Knights and Apps Ltd.) is a clean energy project developer, with a total installed capacity of over 12MW installed across East Africa.

A major theme of the UK's low-carbon energy transition is the **rise of the consumer**. No longer just energy buyers on the end of power lines, we can send energy services "back up the wire", reduce costs and generate new revenues in a new, consumer-centric energy world. In 2030, local power plants (mostly solar and wind) will comprise nearly half of UK capacity, up from a quarter in 2018\. Much will be traded peer-to-peer by a new class of energy "prosumers" offering a range of clean energy services locally, and to the grid operators. The **Liverpool Multi-vector Energy Exchange** (LMEX) will create a detailed design for a city-wide, smart local energy system that will greatly facilitate clean energy, electric vehicles, and low-carbon heating and cooling. Our design will open the door to a host of innovative technologies including EV charging; heat networks with ground / water / air source heat pumps; solar-powered hydrogen production to replace gas supply and power fuel cells; battery and REDOX based energy storage; and a host of flexible demand approaches. LMEX comprises two critical layers -- both first-of-a-kind. The first is hardware: a **Smart Network Controller** with capabilities far beyond the present market, to communicate with, control and optimise in real-time myriad local energy assets. The second is software-based: the **Flexibility Exchange Platform** (FXP), through which prosumers will trade peer-to-peer with full transparency, automatic matching, and without third-party intervention. FXP will be grafted on to the control layer so that a) all buy and sell transactions can be honoured; and b) the technical limits of the system cannot be stressed/violated. LMEX Project is about **commercially-driven R&D**. It benefits from real-world track record in developing smart energy networks, though the city-wide scale envisaged here is far greater than anything in the energy world today. LMEX is about tangible benefit to prosumers and energy system operators: * New flexibility players: all sizes, user-types and technologies able to trade clean, flexible energy services across power, heat and cool, and transport. * More, cheaper, locally produced energy for lower consumer bills. * Reduced import from the grid for reduced network losses and avoidance of network reinforcement and associated disruptions. * More clean energy, leading to improved local air quality, and reduced emissions of greenhouse gases. * New revenue streams: access for participants to a widening spread of local and national energy market segments, in which new revenues streams are emerging steadily.

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A major theme of the UK's low-carbon energy transition is the **rise of the consumer**. No longer just energy buyers on the end of power lines, we can send energy services "back up the wire", reduce costs and generate new revenues in a new, consumer-centric energy world. In 2030, local power plants (mostly solar and wind) will comprise nearly half of UK capacity, up from a quarter in 2018\. Much will be traded peer-to-peer by a new class of energy "prosumers" offering a range of clean energy services locally, and to the grid operators. The **Liverpool Multi-vector Energy Exchange** (LMEX) will create a detailed design for a city-wide, smart local energy system that will greatly facilitate clean energy, electric vehicles, and low-carbon heating and cooling. Our design will open the door to a host of innovative technologies including EV charging; heat networks with ground / water / air source heat pumps; solar-powered hydrogen production to replace gas supply and power fuel cells; battery and REDOX based energy storage; and a host of flexible demand approaches. LMEX comprises two critical layers -- both first-of-a-kind. The first is hardware: a **Smart Network Controller** with capabilities far beyond the present market, to communicate with, control and optimise in real-time myriad local energy assets. The second is software-based: the **Flexibility Exchange Platform** (FXP), through which prosumers will trade peer-to-peer with full transparency, automatic matching, and without third-party intervention. FXP will be grafted on to the control layer so that a) all buy and sell transactions can be honoured; and b) the technical limits of the system cannot be stressed/violated. LMEX Project is about **commercially-driven R&D**. It benefits from real-world track record in developing smart energy networks, though the city-wide scale envisaged here is far greater than anything in the energy world today. LMEX is about tangible benefit to prosumers and energy system operators: * New flexibility players: all sizes, user-types and technologies able to trade clean, flexible energy services across power, heat and cool, and transport. * More, cheaper, locally produced energy for lower consumer bills. * Reduced import from the grid for reduced network losses and avoidance of network reinforcement and associated disruptions. * More clean energy, leading to improved local air quality, and reduced emissions of greenhouse gases. * New revenue streams: access for participants to a widening spread of local and national energy market segments, in which new revenues streams are emerging steadily.