Keywords

Short Introduction

The UK is facing a significant challenge of restructuring its energy system in order to meet the 2050 target of 80 % reduction, by focusing more on decentralised energy systems. Following semi-structured interviews, this work compares and critiques four diverse international case studies in order to demonstrate and contrast a variety of decentralised approaches. Although it is often believed that the main non-technical barriers are mostly financial, this paper argues that governance barriers (out-of-date regulations or unreliable partners) and social barriers (public apathy and misinformation regarding energy consumption) can also be significant.

Introduction

The urban environment is responsible for significant amounts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; at the same time, urban population and infrastructure are vulnerable to the effects of climate change, such as heat waves, sea level rises, and catastrophic climate event (Carbon Disclosure Project 2011). In order to reduce GHG emissions and save energy, the urban environment worldwide faces the challenge of transforming established energy systems based traditionally on the use of fossil fuels. A shift has to be made towards more sustainable and renewable forms of energy (Government Office for Science 2008; Rydin et al. 2012; Walker et al. 2007) and a number of towns, cities and communities are moving successfully towards those new models of energy generation and supply.

The UK has set an ambitious target of 80 % carbon emission reductions by 2050, but to reach this target the significant challenge of restructuring the energy system has to be addressed. Currently, the UK energy system is characterised by a lock-into centralisation (Bergman and Eyre 2011; Walker et al. 2007). There is, however, a potential to challenge this lock-in through the development of more decentralised energy systems based not only on technological but also on more innovative political, social and economic approaches. Indeed, many cities worldwide have already pioneered unique and effective approaches to more decentralised energy systems leading to enhanced carbon emissions reductions. This paper critiques and compares some of these approaches in order to demonstrate a variety of potential decentralisation approaches.

In this paper, none of the case studies contain a thorough evaluation of the project impact and effectiveness with regards to their UK implementation; however, the diversity of the projects provides valuable information regarding decentralised urban energy systems and their ability to help address climate change and challenge urban energy systems lock-in. The case studies presented here cover only a small proportion of the decentralised urban energy projects that currently exist. The focus and motivation for selection of these case studies was their unique and original approach, together with their potential, yet unrealised, applicability within the UK context. To exemplify the multiplicity of pathways that potentially exist towards decarbonisation, it was intentional to present a range of energy resources, technologies, end users and types of project intervention.

Decentralised Urban Energy Systems

The shift towards more sustainable energy systems is extremely challenging and involves a range of complexities, choices and strategic decisions: there are various renewable energy technologies with different applications, technological and infrastructural needs and degrees of maturity; there are different scales at which technologies can be implemented; there are also issues of environmental impact and social acceptance, as well as powerful commercial and political lobbies (Walker et al. 2007).

Many European and other countries are beginning a transition from a centralized and largely fossil-fuel and nuclear-based power systems toward a more decentralized power system relying to a larger extent on small-scale generation from renewable energy sources and Combined Heat and Power (CHP) units, allowing greater active participation of consumers by becoming producers themselves and/or by smarter demand response management of their own energy use (European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy 2010). The main drivers for this transition are not only the necessity to reduce GHG emissions, but also to increase the share of renewables in the energy mix and to make the use of energy more efficient. Rising electricity demand and the price of fuel, liberalisation of the markets and increasing concern over energy security also play important roles in encouraging decentralisation of energy systems (European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy 2010).

Various schemes exist which prove that it is possible to challenge lock-in in different economic, political and social contexts. One example is Barcelona’s innovative policy framework—Solar Renewable Ordinance that started as a support tool for solar thermal and has now been extended to photovoltaic (PV). China also encourages the use of solar energy: according to Rizhao solar policy, it is mandatory for all retrofit programmes to install solar water heaters, while almost all the traffic and street lights and park illuminations are powered by PV cells (Kwan 2010). Other examples include sustainable communities such as the Sustainable Urban District Vauban in Freiburg, Germany and Fossil Fuel Free Växjö in Sweden. The USA also encourages a variety of renewable energy projects from community-led wind farms to green gyms heated by the power created by gym users.

The concept of lock-in has originally been used as a characteristic of an economical assumption but is now frequently discussed in the context of high carbon energy systems (Unruh 2000). The notion of lock-in does not just include technological aspects, but also includes financial (e.g. market rules), governance (e.g. institutional arrangements) and social aspects (e.g. social norms), all of which can present barriers to the changing of an energy system (Turcu et al. 2011).

Decentralised energy systems are frequently claimed to be more resilient, reliable, efficient and environmental friendly, as well as more affordable and accessible whilst offering greater levels of energy security (Alanne and Saari 2006; Coaffe 2008; Roberts 2008; Turcu et al. 2011). An emphasis on the potential benefits of a more localised and distributed pattern of energy generation and on the involvement of the community emerged in the UK in the late 1990s (Walker et al. 2007). For example, Local Agenda 21 principles were called to be applied to local energy planning in 1999 by the Local Government Association (1999). Various parts of the 2003 White Energy Paper also relate to ‘local’ and ‘community’, stating for the first time in official energy policy a future of energy generation in a more local mode (Department of Trade and Industry 2003). The UK is making efforts regards introducing policies that encourage new initiatives which may effectively challenge current lock-in (Turcu et al. 2011), as well as contributing towards its energy targets. The UK has legally binding targets of delivering 15 % of all energy from renewable sources by 2020, and reducing GHG emission by 80 % by 2050, with a reduction of at least 34 % by 2020 and a target to achieve 9 % energy savings by 2016 (Department of Energy and Climate Change 2008). A variety of policies have been introduced in recent years ranging from financial tools such as the Low Carbon Building Programme and Carbon Emission Reduction Target (CERT) to local innovative planning policies and subsidies for the installation of new technologies such as the Feed-in Tariff. A good example of policies that may help drive decentralisation is declaring that all new built residential and non-residential properties must be ‘zero carbon’ by 2016 and 2019, accordingly, thus require some way of generating energy on-site (Government Office for Science 2008).

However, the development of decentralised systems in the UK is much slower when compared to similar developed countries such as Denmark, Germany, Sweden and others, partly explained by the fact that most of the UK policies are aimed at energy generation rather than demand (i.e. user-behaviour) (Bergman and Eyre 2011). In addition, there is frequently a lack of direct connection between personal behaviour and energy consumption: there is a mixture of economic, technical, cultural, behavioural and institutional barriers that often slow down the uptake of the installed technologies and the potential maximisation of energy savings and emissions reduction.

Challenging Lock-in Through Urban Energy Systems (CLUES) Project

In order to critically evaluate the pursuit of decentralised urban energy systems in the light of carbon reduction targets in the UK, the CLUES project began in 2010, focusing on the potential scope for scaling up various individual examples of decentralised urban energy projects to a national level. One of the specific objectives is to undertake a comparative analysis of urban energy initiatives in the UK and internationally in order to understand the processes involved in transforming local exemplar cases to practices replicable at different scales and in different local contexts (Rydin et al. 2012).

This paper discusses the international initiatives only: with the UK initiatives being discussed elsewhere (Wiersma and Devine-Wright 2012). As well as gathering and analysing the information regarding these innovative international urban decentralised energy projects, it is also important and valuable to identify the potential possibilities of their application and scaling up in the UK.

The four case studies discussed here are from the USA, the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden with the focus on the experience of the project’s development, rather than on a critical evaluation of policy or the technical efficiencies of the projects. Indeed, these countries have already successfully pioneered a variety of unique and effective approaches to more decentralised energy systems leading to enhanced carbon emissions reductions. It could be hypothesised that some of the best practices of decentralised urban energy systems implemented in Europe and worldwide are potentially replicable in the UK. However, when discussing replicability, it is important to consider that together with available natural resources and the access to technology, aspects such as social and cultural embeddedness and political and financial context also need to be considered. The definition of decentralised energy is much wider than just the physical technologies of heating, cooling and electricity generation; it is a concept that encompasses energy systems at different scales, with different institutional, policy, environmental, economic and social contemplations (Watson and Devine-Wright 2011).

International Case Studies

The four case studies presented in Table 23.1 were chosen due to their geographic diversity and their variety of financial and technical approaches, together with their potential, yet unrealised, applicability within the UK context.

Table 23.1 Comparison summary of four case studies
Full size table

Seawater District Heating System: An Example of the Hague (Scheveningen/Duindorp)

The City of The Hague and Vestia Housing Corporation partnered with Deerns Engineering Consultancy to implement this energy source in the reconstruction of 800 highly energy efficient houses located within Duindorp—an area along the North Sea Coast.

The technologies involved are not new: the innovation lies in their combination that allows constructing a very efficient system for making seawater or surface water the source of energy for heating and cooling homes as well as heating water all year round (Goodier et al. 2012). The overall efficiency of the heat generation process with this system is more than 50 % greater than conventional high-efficiency boilers, while the cost to the residents is the same (The City of The Hague 2009).

The sea water heating plant is part of the city’s plan to use more sustainable energy and is one of the steps being taken towards making the area ‘climate neutral’. In 2009, the plant was awarded a Climate Star for their climate protection activities (The City of The Hague 2009).

Morris Model: A New way of Financing PV for Municipal Buildings

The Morris Model is a unique and cost effective method of financing municipal renewable energy projects for public facilities through low-interest bonds, traditional Power Purchase Agreements and federal tax. It allows local government to receive access to renewable energy at a price lower than they currently do, without any debt obligation. The Local Financial Board approved the MCIA bonds of up to $30 m. The MCIA issued $21.6 m of debt at a 4.46 % net interest cost with a county guarantee to fund 19 solar projects with 3.2 MW capacities (Chegwidden et al. 2010).

Traditionally, local governments had two ways of financing solar programmes: either with tax exempt bonds (local government-owned approach), or by entering into turnkey relationships with private solar developers. The Morris Model is a hybrid that incorporates these two approaches and takes advantages of both options, whilst minimizing drawbacks (Chegwidden et al. 2010). The project uses a turnkey approach but financing is provided at the lower cost of capital is obtained by government. This allows a cheaper financing for the solar development as well as preserving the utilities capacity to borrow from the private capital lending sources for other projects (Pearlman and Scerbo 2010).

The MCIA has completed the first phase of its award winning renewable energy project, providing the County with 3.2 MW in clean energy and around $3.8 m in annual savings (Chegwidden et al. 2010). The model has been replicated in Somerset and Union counties in New Jersey with several other counties in various stages of programmatic review (Chegwidden et al. 2010).

Berlin Energy Saving Partnership (BESP): An Innovative Approach to Commercial Buildings Retrofit

The BESP was first introduced by the State of Berlin in 1995. The concept was based on transferring energy management of state-owned properties to a partner, who uses private capital to self-finance the modernization of building infrastructure necessary to cut energy use and CO2 emissions. In return, the partner guarantees annual energy cost savings for the state (Chmutina et al. 2012). Implemented energy efficiency measures include refurbishment of heating and illumination, energy management as well as user motivation.

This model has proved to be a success in Germany and is now widely replicated in other European countries, such as Slovenia, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania, as well as in China, Chile and other countries (Chmutina et al. 2012). The next step in the development of BESP is “Energy Saving Partnership Plus”: its aim is to extend the focus of the partnership on insulation and windows replacement.

Kungsbrohuset Office Building: Eco-Smart Office Approach

Kungsbrohuset is a 27,000 m2 property in the centre of Stockholm, near the Stockholm Central Station. The owner of the building—Jernhusen—wanted to prove that it is possible to build a sustainable office building using available market materials and mature technologies rather than sophisticated but—in their opinion—‘risky’ innovations. The objective of the project was to create a development where the environment and energy-efficiency are central considerations. The building is advertised as being ‘eco-smart’, which includes three characteristics (Jernhusen 2012):

  • Eco-smart building: The building with energy efficient façade and environmentally adapted materials, combined with other innovative solutions that lead to three environmental certifications.

  • Eco-everyday: Services and technical solutions that enable users to operate in an eco-friendly way.

  • Eco-location: The building’s proximity to public transport makes travelling and transports easier and contributes to lower CO2 emissions.

Discussion

Rather than discussing drivers and barriers separately, this paper presents an aspect based analysis that reflects the variety of interconnections influencing the outcomes of the projects. Governance aspects include both structure and process, and involve public, public–private and private activities. By social aspects we understand not only the end-users in the discussed cases, but also those ‘affected’ by these project, such as communities living around schools, people living in the area where the construction takes place and those engaged in public consultations.

Governance Aspect

The case studies represent three types of governance: The Hague system was initiated by a private company and was supported by the local government, Kungsbrohuset is fully run by a private company, and both Morris Model and BESP were initiated by local governments and implemented through a third party.

The Hague system was initiated by a combination of stakeholders—local government, the housing corporation, the engineering consultancy and the utility company—who wanted to prove that a ‘carbon neutral future is possible’. Vestia originated the idea of the district heating system for their newly renovated housing development, and the Deerns engineering company developed the innovative concept of seawater district heating:

We have the sea here and there’s a lot of energy in it and we can try to get this energy out of the sea and bring it into the houses so that we can reduce CO2.

This decision, however, led to the dropout of one of the initial stakeholders—the utility company—which did not believe that the proposed system would work; this undermined the success of the project. Vestia therefore took all the financial risks thereon in and the project was thus completed. Vestia’s policy has always been aimed at energy waste reduction and sustainability:

Vestia had the initiative to be energy efficient. They were miles ahead of regulations, miles ahead of what the municipality asked then and actually wanted.

This initiative was supported by the City of The Hague, although at the time of the project introduction (1999) the City of The Hague had not yet developed their plan to become carbon neutral by 2050. The City of The Hague, Deerns and Vestia had previously been partners on a variety of projects such as housing renovation and ground source heat pump district heating systems. The City of The Hague supported Vestia’s request for the planning permission to use Scheveningen Harbour since it was free after the container transporter moved to another harbour. This however, was not straight forward: the harbour is a part of the coastal defence system against flooding, so the construction could not take place between October and April, as sand is not allowed to be moved over this period of time. It is also a nature reserve that attracts tourism from May to September, which again restricted and slowed construction of the houses and piping infrastructure. Planning permissions also greatly delayed the timing of the project.

The Morris Model has a very different governance approach. Due to the nature of the public–private partnership, governance is closely intertwined with the financial aspect of the model. Morris County is an AAA rated local government and one of the wealthiest counties in the USA. This is very important when implementing a programme like the Morris Model, as the low cost bonds issued by the MCIA are guaranteed by the County. New Jersey is one of 38 states that have introduced a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) according to which energy producers have to produce a share of their energy from renewable energy sources. The Morris Model is also triggered by the national regulation: Washington’s tax code gives 30 % investment tax credit for PV along with 5 years accelerated depreciation. From 2009 the developer can also get a cheque for 30 % from the US treasury—this is a stimulus bill which was introduced to boost the economy and which expires in the end of 2011.

The idea of a hybrid funding mechanism was proposed by the MCIA in order to lower energy costs for the local government. This was possible by bringing together (‘pooling’) municipal buildings, as when pooled together, these buildings had enhanced purchasing power and were able to obtain an enhanced energy price from solar developers due to the increased scale:

[…] if you’re a solar developer and you’re looking at where I’m going to deploy my assets and wares, I’m much more interested in an 8 MW project than I am in a 250 KW project.

Choosing a pool, however, was not very straightforward due to the costs of site pre-screening until the developer is chosen:

they[developers] do a preliminary look. They look at the sites, but they don’t do a true engineering test and notwithstanding the screen[ing] that we do, there have been in each of these deals typically some change in the final makeup of the sites.

This financial model lowered the costs of energy dramatically and these savings were passed onto schools and municipalities. As one of the initiators of the project stated,

everyone seems very happy with the final product. All of the stakeholders seem very happy. The developers make some money, the County has helped its local governments, the towns and schools have gotten renewable energy at a lower cost, so it truly has been so far a win–win for everyone.

The reason for developing BESP was to reach Germany’s ambitious climate protection objectives, as well as to reduce energy costs. Its basic principle is simple: a private specialized energy service company (ESCO)—the contractor—brings its expertise and financial capacity into the project. The responsibility of the contractor is to ensure that by making adequate investments, the energy savings can be guaranteed. Both partners then share the cost reductions; profits are also shared between the client and the contractor, while energy consumption is reduced. BESP was initiated by the City of Berlin:

…Berlin decided “Yeah, this is the right way for us to do energy refurbishment on buildings.” And they were also really active to develop the model contract and so on and there was in these times a lot of strong, political back-up.

The City of Berlin is now only slightly involved in the BESP, and its implementation is the responsibility of the Berlin Energy Agency (BEA), which confirms a building pool (the client) and organises tenders for the ESCOs. Buildings willing to take part in the programme have to fulfill a set of criteria. The minimum size of the project is also important and, similarly to the Morris Model, in order to allow smaller buildings to take part in the programme, BEA can create a ‘building pool’. After the client is chosen, BEA organises a tendering process for the contractor, who then implements the energy efficiency measures. The successful implementation of the BESP largely depends on the careful planning and development of the project.

Kungsbrohuset office building is managed by Jernhusen, who built it as a replacement for the old unattractive office building. The idea of making the new building sustainable came after watching Al Gore’s film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and the consequent realization that climate change presented a good business opportunity. Having purely financial profit as the main aim, Jernhusen also wanted to prove that it was possible to build a highly energy efficient building using only materials easily available on the current market as well as mature existing technologies:

We had no research in this building. There’s no special materials that you just can buy from the American government or something. This is all purely made with normal stuff that you can find everywhere. And put together in a very delicate way. Any technology, any method, anything that we have done here is found somewhere else in the world. We don’t want to be first with anything because we don’t want to take the risk, and thereby showing people that you can do it as well if you just put your effort in it.

Because of the technologically challenging design and, the main problem experienced by the company during the project implementation was the coordination of the large amount of contractors;

The main challenge is organisational I’d say. People who are not really… To get everybody on the train, to get everybody to co-work with these goals of getting it as energy efficient as we wanted, to work with the environmental situation. Some people just said “Why are we going to do this? Can’t we do it like we’ve always done it? Why do you want to make energy calculations every 4 months? You’re not going to earn many per cent on that,” etc. etc. That kind of to persuade people and finally it comes to “Either you do as I tell you to do or we get rid of you.” That was one of the hardest parts—to keep the line, to keep the focus on the target.

Problems were also caused by the Stockholm Sky Line Group who petitioned against high-rise buildings, and the public planning consultations. Similarly to The Hague case, this delayed the projects construction; this, however, did not affect the project negatively.

The success and popularity of the Kungsbrohuset office building can be attributed not only to access to finance by the building owners: they have managed their risks with a good market understanding, active involvement and strong commitment into the construction and operation process, together with a precise matching of new technologies and products with customer needs.

Financial Aspect

The total cost of The Hague system was €7.5 mln, of which €7 mln came from Vestia Housing Corporation and €0.5 mln from the City of Hague. The price of the energy for the end users is similar to the previous conventional system; this however, does not reflect the actual unit cost price—it is currently being subsidised by Vestia and is guaranteed to stay at the same level for 10 years.

Initially, the estimated payback period accounted for 20 years, however at the current rate this does not seem to be achievable due to one of the stakeholders leaving the project at its implementation stage. This caused a 25 % gap in investment, which was later covered by Vestia as no other subsidy was found. The National Authority was asked to invest in the project, but they rejected this, as they did not believe that the project would be successfully implemented. However, 10 years later the same National Authority was awarded the Climate Star for the “Best Innovation”. In order to make this project profitable, more houses than the original 750 have to be connected to the system. A Further 250 houses are planned to be connected in the nearest future. As this project is the first of its kind, and was experimental in nature, it was developed not for profit but to help raise the profile of the City of The Hague as a sustainable city and to support Vestia’s belief in sustainability. Vestia stated that although financially this project is not yet mature, it also raised the image of Vestia:

For the energy saving it is a success, and also for CO2 reduction it’s a success, and to learn about it for a lot of people is a success.

In the Morris Model, the MCIA played a very important role in financing. In the first phase the saving were around 35 % for the developers, and this lowered the cost of energy from US $0.15 or US $0.16 down to US $0.106. In essence, the private developer does not invest any of its own money. The main benefit of the model is that the County (through the MCIA) is fronting the money for the local towns, and instead of the private developer using their own private money from a bank, they go to the Improvement Authority acting as the bank to give them cheaper finance. The schools and others participating in the programme buildings do not have to invest anything, as all the installation and maintenance costs are covered by the developer. In addition, some of the participants needed a new actual roof as well, the price of which was also embedded into the project.

Morris Model gave a financial opportunity to install PV for those participants who would not be able to afford it otherwise. A good example is a Boonton School District:

As a school district we had a big construction project that went out for referendum for our voters in 2007 and I believe it was almost a $25 m referendum. It included the installation of solar panels and it was defeated. So when the solar panels were removed from the project and the project was scaled down a little bit the voters approved it. So this kind of came right at the right time when the community was not willing to pay for it.

Now the School District has 728 PV panels installed and in 2011 they aimed at saving around US $18,000.

Unlike Morris Model, BESP did not have any initial investment and the Berlin government did not provide any financial support to the ESCO. All the financing was made by the contractor. When signing a contract with the client, the contractor guarantees a minimum level of energy savings—on average it was 26 %. The contractor then receives his agreed earnings if the stated savings have been reached. At the same time, the client is able to save money through reduced heating and electricity consumption, itself achieved through enhanced energy efficiency measures. The investment carried out by the contractor is also refinanced through these savings. Any remaining savings are shared by the partners according to a ratio system agreed in the contract. The contractor is responsible for the maintenance and servicing of the system for the duration of the project (5–15 years), and the client only fully benefits from the complete savings once the contract has expired. In some cases, part of the refurbishment costs also come from the client, if the client wishes to implement additional energy efficiency measures that are not offered within BESP due to their high costs, such as windows replacement or renewable energy technologies installation.

The financing of the project may become a problem in the near future however: while the energy performance of the buildings is improving, the potential energy savings are decreasing, therefore there is an ongoing need for further energy saving measures, such as window replacement or insulation:

We have the contract for this and we want to do this with some pilot projects, but still it’s we still have to find a pilot case and we still have to find the financing because you need then some financing from subsidies or from other. The ESCOs cannot finance this.

This causes uncertainty among ESCOs, as energy performance contracting (EPC) may soon become more attractive to construction companies rather than ESCOs.

The construction of the Kungsbrohuset office building was financially driven and the project was fully financed by Jernhusen, the owner of the building:

We want to build this product on solely an economical base. […]we had the land and we had the former building, so we had you could call it a business opportunity, but it’s not [about sustainability]. It’s mainly…to earn money.

The concept of the building as being ‘green’ and ‘user-friendly’ as well as the central city location of the building allows the owner to charge higher rents:

We earn money on the tenants because they pay us money to rent the letting. We don’t earn the money on the energy efficiency. That’s just a bonus kind of. We earn more money because its energy efficient, but we don’t earn money only because it’s energy efficient.

The construction of the energy efficient office building was not a core business for the company; however, it now is a part of the company’s strategy. After the Kungsbrohuset attracted a lot of attention and brought higher than planned profit, Jernhusen is planning to construct similar building in other cities in Sweden.

Social Aspect

Social aspects are crucial when discussing energy consumption reduction, particularly in building use, and introducing new low-energy initiatives does not necessarily mean rapid carbon reductions, as most of them require some form of human adjustment and change in behaviour.

In order for the seawater heating to work efficiently, for example, an understanding of how the system works is required from the end-users (occupants). To encourage the acceptance of the new heating system, Vestia organised information evenings for the occupants, as well as distributed information brochures; yet it took a long time for those living in the houses to accept some of the changes. The main challenge was the idea of the constant heating: when using seawater heating system, it takes about two days to warm up a house to the desired temperature, whereas with conventional gas heating, it is possible to obtain the required temperature within a few hours. Another barrier that slowed down the social acceptance was the fact that the system consisted of under floor heating, not wall-mounted radiators like the occupants’ previous systems. Many did not appreciate that a particular type of carpeting must be used: otherwise the heat gets trapped and the temperature in a house does not increase efficiently. Again, this problem was being addressed through educational campaigns.

Vestia admits that the installation of the seawater district heating did not dramatically change end-user behaviour, partly due to the lack of interest and awareness:

Because people with low income and low education, they… don’t understand exactly how to use all this kind of stuff and they don’t care about it. They care about other stuff—what the neighbours do and how to get beer or something. It is a social housing… It’s a group where everyone knows each other. It’s something like Coronation Street….

Although the change in end-user behaviour towards the acceptance of the seawater heating is slow, it does not dramatically affect the overall success of the project from a financial or efficiency point of view, and Vestia continues to run educational programmes in order to improve the awareness.

This raises the additional point of ensuring that any new type of renewable energy or energy saving system is designed with the end-user in mind, in order to work with the vagarities of occupant behaviour, and not against. The Kungsbrohuset building did exactly that:

People don’t want to change and they just want to have it the way that they’ve always had it and if they’re going to change it has to be something better or easier or something. They don’t want to do something that takes more time and they don’t want to pay more money. They just want it to work anyway. So no, we have built this building so it kind of like helps them to save their energy.

In order to help the tenants save the energy without extra effort, the building is provided with energy efficient appliances, motion lighting, and the ‘Green Button’ that allows switching off of the electricity in the entire building (except for the computers). In addition, the energy monitor at the entrance hall of the building provides the occupants an opportunity to see how much energy has been generated and consumed.

Although behaviour change was not a part of the original idea, in order to maintain the ‘green’ reputation of the building, all the tenants in the building are supported by an expert who helps to minimize their impact on the environment. The building is also provided with a secure bicycle storage area, while the car parking space in purposefully limited. These factors, as well as the location of the building being close to the central railway station and bus terminals, encourage commuting:

So there’s 1800 people [in the building] and 100 car places. So that’s 100 bosses who drive their cars. 400 go by bicycle and then it’s 1300 who go by commuting I’d say.

The Morris Model did not have behaviour change towards sustainability as its primary objective; however, the buildings particularly the schools participating in this programme, saw a good opportunity

to show our community and our students that our school district was attempting to do something that would be positive for the environment and also positive for the taxpayers.

In order to encourage a better understanding of renewable energy, solar developers were required to include educational components, such as interactive kiosks and LCD monitors. Some schools have portable kiosks that can be moved from class to class: this allows students to generate graphs and charts to see how much energy is being produced at any given time. They provide informative campaigns for the community and the taxpayers, as many see the low costs of energy as too good to be true.

Social aspect is an important part of the BESP. Every ESCO that carries out implementation of energy efficiency measures in the building is required to provide a user motivation programme, in the form of information distribution, workshops or others. This is particularly important in the current projects of the BESP, as the profit of the ESCOs depends on reaching the established energy saving target. There is a limit on how much savings the technical disruption can provide however, and in some cases the way users consume energy plays a crucial role, therefore it is in the interest of the ESCO to educate the end-user and hence, as a result to achieve higher energy savings. It is important to mention that user motivation is aimed not only at particular building staff such as estate officers, but rather at actual building users/occupiers, including even as far as kindergarten children. One of the companies involved in BESP commented:

they[users]’re often very interested and very open to that, but the knowledge about energy saving, and also the ideas of what you can get as energy savings, is really far from reality. So there’s a lot of lack of knowledge.

Workshops and awareness campaigns however, can sometimes cause problems:

The expectations are often that high that they say “okay, we can replace the windows” like you said, or “Why can’t we do some other things?”.

These measures go beyond the technical possibilities of ESCOs and hence can sometimes cause tension between the client and the contractor.

Conclusions

The four case studies presented here vary greatly not only in terms of their technology, scale and location, but also in terms of their governance and financial mechanisms. It was demonstrated that governance and social barriers rather than technical and financial ones constitute central problem areas in the adoption of decentralised energy approaches, indicating multi-dimensional complexity associated with organising and staging energy supply. Governance drivers play the most significant role, although not necessarily in the form of regulations, whereas financial drivers that are normally believed to be crucial were not viewed as such. Our discussion—although it does not exhaust the full list of potential drivers—offers useful hints regarding these, including regulations with legally-bound targets, and social drivers, such as word-of-mouth. Such a variety of drivers implies that there are different, and often inter-connected, pathways to decentralised energy development. All four projects have already been replicated or are planned to be replicated, in their own countries and abroad, including in two cases (BESP and The Hague), the UK (although on a much smaller scale). Indeed, they have potential for replicating and scaling up in the UK and hence contributing to carbon reductions. Although the implementation of decentralised energy systems is facing various obstacles, it is important to remember that energy-related decisions made today will have long-lasting consequences not only in terms of investment but also in terms of their impact on society as well as wider global climate change.