ECI leads: Prof Jan Rosenow and Dr Jake Barnes
The Regional Energy Planning and Heat project explores how Regional Energy Strategic Plans are shaping the transition to low-carbon heat across Great Britain. Focusing on how planning is organised, governed and delivered in practice, it examines how different actors, capabilities and forms of knowledge influence outcomes. The findings will support more coordinated, inclusive and effective approaches to regional energy planning.
Decarbonising heat is one of the biggest challenges in Great Britain’s journey to net zero. Achieving it requires not only new technologies, but new ways of planning and coordinating energy infrastructure. Regional Energy Strategic Plans (RESPs) represent the latest attempt to create that coordination at a regional scale.
RESPs are widely seen to be a first-in-a-kind development, representing a major change in how energy infrastructure is organised. They are being constructed in real time, with unresolved questions about alignment across scales and about who shapes their direction, more like assembling a plane mid-flight than following a finished blueprint.
This project investigates how RESPs are being designed and delivered, and what this means for heat decarbonisation. It asks three core questions:
- What new institutional roles and responsibilities are emerging through regional energy planning?
- How do different regions organise the RESP process, and whose knowledge counts in shaping plans?
- How do the capabilities of local authorities, businesses and community organisations influence outcomes?
The research combines institutional analysis, comparative case studies in Scotland, Wales and South West England, and interviews and workshops with policymakers, network operators, local authorities, industry and community groups.
By analysing RESPs as a new governing process, not just a technical plan, the project will identify practical ways to strengthen coordination across scales, improve knowledge integration, and support more inclusive and effective heat planning.
The project is led by Professor Jan Rosenow, supported by Dr Jake Barnes and is a collaboration with the University of Edinburgh and the Centre for Sustainable Energy. Key collaborators include Prof Jan Webb at the University of Edinburgh and Dr Emily Cox, Keith Hempshall and Alex North at the Centre for Sustainable Energy. The project is funded by the UK Energy Research Centre, via ESRC as part of UK Research and Innovation.
