Already a leading city in the UK when it comes to sustainable energy creation, this project will further support Nottingham’s push to meet its 2020 targets to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 26% and have 20% of the city’s energy generated from renewable and low carbon sources.
The project involves four European Cities working in partnership with six academic and technical organisations to develop a better understanding of each city’s energy generating potential and demand to plan a sustainable energy future for each city.
The energy used across Nottingham by transport, households and businesses and for public services such as street lighting and waste collections will be analysed so more sustainable energy processes can be developed. This will enable the council to reduce the impact of fuel price increases and create a more robust and sustainable energy generation and distribution system to meet the 2020 targets and beyond.
The project will develop a tool for better forecasting of the costs and benefits of new low carbon initiatives in the city so more city specific information is available at the time of commissioning new projects. In early 2016 the project team will run a series of workshops to gather feedback from residents and organisations as to what low carbon initiatives they would like to see developed in the city. Feedback gathered and the results of the project will inform the next Energy Strategy for the city.
The project is part the EU’s family of Smart City projects and this is the second of such projects that Nottingham is currently involved with. The city has also secured REMOURBAN funding of £5m to improve energy performance of homes, establish new low-carbon transport and implement smart technologies which will be the subject of international research.
Source: My Nottingham News
22 February 2016