How we'll make Bristol's electricity use as smart and flexible as possible to support electricity decarbonisation nationally, and how we'll maximise local renewable energy generation.
For Bristol to be carbon neutral by 2030, more of the electricity used in the city must be from renewable sources, replacing gas and coal fuelled power plants.
Most of this happens at a national level through decarbonisation of the national grid, for example by installing large offshore wind farms in the sea.
Although Bristol cannot generate enough electricity to meet its own demand, there's lots of potential to generate more through rooftop solar panels (estimated at a total of 500 Megawatts).
We can also manage our demand through smart energy solutions, for example, using energy when the electricity network is being supplied with renewable energy.
This way, we can maximise the use of renewable energy rather than relying on fossil fuel generation. Fossil fuelled power plants are often fired up at peak times when there's not enough electricity being generated from wind or sun.
The goals from the One City Climate Strategy are to:
- maximise renewable generation in the city, including around 350megawatts of solar
- support decarbonisation of the national grid
How we've supported electricity from renewable sources and helped people to manage their electricity demand
We've:
- become the UK's first local authority to build and manage our own large-scale wind turbines in 2013 with 5MW generation capacity
- delivered a multimillion pound solar investment programme on our council and community buildings, including installing 3.8 Megawatts (MW) of solar panels across the city
We're the first local authority to have the type of energy sleeving arrangement where we can use the electricity we generate from our own wind turbines and solar farm to supply around a third of our own electricity demand
The sleeving arrangement will be developed further with our City Leap partner to allow us buy renewable electricity direct from community groups that produce energy, for example by installing wind turbines or solar panels. This will allow us to provide more of our electricity demand from locally generated renewables.
We delivered the smart homes project as part of Smart Homes Connecting Bristol, to install smart appliances like washing machines and solar panels into more than 150 homes in Ashley, Easton and Lawrence Hill.
We've also partnered with the West of England Combined Authority to deliver the Solar Together scheme in Bristol. This group-buying scheme allows residents to get high-quality solar panels at a competitive price, helping them save money on electricity bills and reduce their carbon footprint.
How we'll support generation of electricity from renewable sources and use of smart energy solutions in the future
Through the City Leap Energy Partnership, we intend to install more solar PV on the buildings we own.
We're helping Ambition Community Energy get funding and develop proposals to build a wind turbine with 4.2 megawatt capacity.
We aim for all the electricity and gas we buy to power our buildings, street lighting, lighting of communal areas, hand tools used in parks and cemeteries, electric vehicles and plant to be from certified renewable sources.
We're exploring new technologies, plans and investments, to support the changes we need to make to the electricity network, as part of the One City Climate Strategy.
We'll be trialling battery management and optimisation services as part of the Twinergy project. This means using batteries to store power when it's generated from renewable sources.
To maximise the use of electricity generation from solar panels on residential buildings. Alongside smart energy tariffs, it will:
- lower household bills
- mean that as little energy as possible is used in homes that comes from the electricity grid when it's powered by gas or coal