'Joined up delivery' of energy, water and waste infrastructure at community scale calls for 'radical new ways of partnering'

The UK Green Building Council and the Zero Carbon Hub have published the final report from a joint task group on Sustainable Community Infrastructure.

The findings point clearly towards a future in which community scale heating, water harvesting, waste disposal and waste re-use all have a key role to play. Infrastructure such as this, when planned and delivered in an integrated way, can offer considerable carbon and cost savings and community benefits.

Local development frameworks (LDFs) could have a key role in the delivery of such community-scale heating, water harvesting, waste disposal and waste re-use, with the recommended ‘Sustainability Option Plans’, identifing opportunities to deliver joined-up sustainable community infrastructure and work in partnership with the private sector to supply this.

Key recommendations include:

1. Local authorities should develop ‘Sustainability Option Plans’, to identify opportunities to deliver joined-up sustainable community infrastructure and work in partnership with the private sector to supply this.

2. Public sector buildings should be required, where available and viable, to connect to existing or planned community heat networks, to provide an ‘anchor load’ of demand, and large businesses should be encouraged to do the same.

3. The ‘allowable solutions’ mechanism should be used as a way of providing additional ring fenced capital to support the delivery of heat infrastructure. Government has said that developers will be able to invest in so-called allowable solutions in order to meet the required standard when constructing new zero carbon buildings.

Paul King, chief executive of UK-GBC said: 'Our homes and buildings cannot be sustainable in isolation. In many cases it makes sense to join up delivery of infrastructure such as energy, water and waste at a community scale. There has been an assumption that consumers are instinctively against things like district heat or waste-to-energy plants, but our research suggests that is no longer the case.

'However, delivering sustainable community infrastructure, particularly district heating, is often still seen as expensive and high risk, which is why we need the public sector to play a key role in providing the anchor loads necessary to instil confidence and make schemes viable.

'It also makes a huge amount of sense to enable local energy infrastructure to be recognised as part of the zero carbon ‘allowable solutions’ for new homes and buildings. This would offer the industry a cost-effective means of meeting the needs of new development in ways that will benefit existing communities too.'

David Adams, Director of the Zero Carbon Hub said: 'Community energy systems are an important component of delivering low carbon energy on larger developments. This report reinforces the key role that government can play, both providing demand as a client and enabling provision of heat infrastructure through allowable solutions.

'However, the acid test is whether these recommendations will turn community scale energy schemes currently on the drawing board into viable reality.'

Marco Marijewycz, task group member, E.ON said: 'For too long we’ve looked at these problems in isolation. If we are to tackle the triple challenges of affordable, sustainable and secure energy we need to work together and engage communities from day one.

'Radical new ways of partnering need to be established bringing together energy companies and local authorities at the master planning stage along with house-builders and developers. The shared goal must be to look for opportunities to deliver sustainable, low carbon energy solutions at a scale that can serve multiple new domestic and non-domestic developments as well as existing buildings.'