Pluralising governance of net zero: examining alternative business and ownership models

This ambitious project will investigate the role of ownership and governance in the UK's net-zero transition, focused on three key sectors of the UK economy, power generation, transport, and housing. Building on the applicants existing work on how new business models can support decarbonisation of these sectors, the project will further explore the importance of ownership and governance for achieving a just and affordable transition for citizens. Through four secondments with industry partners and extensive engagement with policymakers, this unique project will provide direct and transferable insights for the design of UK energy and industrial policy towards a more sustainable and just economy. WP1 Business Model Case Studies In WP1 we will focus on three emerging families of business model, Local electricity markets (LEM), Energy as a Service (EaaS) and Mobility as a Service (MaaS). LEM: The highly centralised unidirectional power supply business model is evolving to integrate decentralised renewables and demand side flexibility. LEMs seek to match the supply and demand of power in a specific location, or within specific parts of the distribution network in real time. By matching supply and demand locally, LEMs can achieve better renewable generation prices, while consumers recieve lower costs. EaaS: Traditional energy supply business models incentivise increased "throughput" sales of energy commodities such as oil, gas, and electricity. EaaS models instead provide the useful end service such as heat, cooling, or illumination, shifting suppliers' incentives to maximise the efficiency of the energy conversion systems and reduce energy demand. These models are seen as potentially transformational in the drive to reduce energy demand from buildings via the retrofit of energy efficiency and district or low carbon heat systems. MaaS: Traditional personal mobility relies on private vehicle ownership, with vehicle manufacturers having limited incentives for fuel efficiency. MaaS models instead allow users to share vehicles through car clubs, managed on digital platforms. MaaS models further aim to integrate multiple transport modes, though digital platforms which provide real time information about time of arrival, origin, and destination. Through 3, 4-6-month placements, supplemented with a literature review and semi-structured interviews, WP1 will examine the value that these business model can provide and their barriers to adoption. This will involve partnerships with Regen for the LEM case, one of the UK's leading energy think tanks, CoCars a provider of shared electric mobility services for MaaS and Energiesprong who are developing EaaS models for social housing. WP2: Ownership Research Ownership of energy, housing and transport has received limited attention in academic literature on the UK energy transition, despite its centrality in the political discourse, and widespread public support for public ownership. WP2 will focus on key proposals for different combinations of private, public and community ownership of 7 core sectors: electricity generation; the electricity transmission and distribution network; public transport; electric vehicles; energy efficiency and low carbon heat; the construction supply chain and finance. This will involve a partnership with Common-Wealth, the UKs leading think-tank working on ownership issues, with quantitative and qualitative investigation of the value, costs and benefits of alternative ownership forms WP3: Policy Implications WP3 will focus on generating research impact by investigating and promoting the policy implications of the findings through a series of workshops and reports, with key policymakers. Each placement will be followed by a 2-3-month intensive policy engagement with respective government departments, focussed on how constraints and opportunities can be overcome via supportive public policy, culminating in sector specific policy recommendations.