14/12/23: Delivering Edinburgh's Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategy

Edinburgh Association of Community Councils

1. On 15 December, CEC’s Policy & Sustainability Committee receives the Council’s Draft Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategy (LHEES) and the related Draft Delivery Plan. Scot Gov has mandated all Local Authorities to prepare this kind of detailed thinking for the road to Net Zero Emissions by 2045. You’ll find the full set of documents in the Public Document Pack, Agenda Item 5.2, on Page 111. There is a lot of reading here. It is a very commendable piece of work, led by CEC Programme Development Officer, Kyle Drummond.

2. The LHEES papers are preceded (on Page 36) by the submission of the Draft Climate Ready Edinburgh (CRE) Plan 2024-2030, with a public consultation to follow. The CRE Plan updates risk assessments of why and where the city needs to adapt, building on big themes like Planning and the Built Environment, Coastal Adaptation, Sustainable Transport, the Natural Environment, Community Support and Climate Justice. It goes almost without saying that “as this work develops….the need for additional investment will become more acute”.

3. The CRE Plan is strong on concept and has a ‘vision thing’ – “Edinburgh will be a thriving, fair, resilient city and region where people, communities and nature flourish in a changing climate”. By contrast the Edinburgh LHEES and the Delivery Plan which follows (Page 293) are deep on detail, setting out ‘baseline analyses’ of where the city’s building stock falls short on energy efficiency, where it exacerbates fuel poverty and where it runs high on carbon emissions. The Delivery Plan translates analysis into activity and goes on to identify, almost by grid reference, a series of ‘priority areas of focus’ (also termed ‘strategic zones’) where walls and lofts will be insulated, heat pumps installed and heat networks stitched together. (The high-level ‘principles’ governing ‘how to start’ priorities are set out on Page 135. The high level ‘Considerations’ shaping the ‘pathways to decarbonisation’ – ‘how to get there’ – are summarised on Page 163. The mapping starts on Page 249.)

4. All of this goes towards identifying “a portfolio of projects that could potentially be delivered, or at least initiated/progressed, during the Delivery Plan period (2024 to 2028), subject to the necessary resources and powers being available” (Page 308). Note the conditionality. Specified are eight Delivery Areas relating to Energy Efficiency, 10 Delivery Areas relating to Heat Pumps and 17 prospective Heat Network Zones; a total of 35 physical intervention project localities. (Other declared projects include high-rise housing retrofit, old and historic properties retrofit and green heat.)

5. This is detailed drawing-board work (mapped from Page 319). Here are some of the acknowledged limitations. On Energy Efficiency: the interventions will not pay for themselves over time; they would likely need to be partly or wholly subsidised. On Heat Pumps: there are significant obstacles to embarking on any large-scale installation programme. On Heat Network Zones: how to plan and undertake the large-scale excavation which then disrupts almost every other element of city infrastructure.

6. The full Delivery Plan Schedule of Actions to be led by a new “LHEES Office” is set out on Page 390. There is much to be done, all of it hinging on the adoption of core high-level Principles to guide a “20-year journey to decarbonisation”. Here are some of the strands of thinking embodied within these Principles: Behavioural change will be vital. / There has to be a major structural change in electricity pricing. / “The capital costs of implementing the Edinburgh LHEES are vast.” / “…the Council does not currently have a budget in place for the delivery of the Edinburgh LHEES.” / “…additional powers to compel change will be required to deliver heat carbonisation in a timeous manner.” / “…there are significant pressures on the availability of skills associated with heat decarbonisation.”

7. The LHEES Office is on a Scot Gov grant budget of £75k per annum for five years out to 2028. That is more or less all that is in the Council’s kitty so far for this massive decarbonisation project. The Council is currently facing “severe stress on its budget”. In prospect is a long-running programme whose “targets will be extremely challenging”, calling for “large-scale activity by both the public sector and the private sector and the commitment of significant resources”.

8. This is, in essence, a city redesign project. “The total cost of delivering the Edinburgh LHEES – i.e. of improving the energy efficiency and decarbonising the heat of every building in Edinburgh – will be in the order of several billion pounds over the next 20+ years.” “A wide variety of stakeholders will require to be mobilised towards these goals.” Note that last verb. Be prepared to be disturbed.

Appendix

Energy Efficiency Delivery Areas
Restalrig & Lochend / Bingham & Magdalene / Restalrig & Craigentinny

The Calders / Granton, Wardieburn & Royston / Niddrie & Craigmillar

Clovenstone & Wester Hailes / Muirhouse

Heat Pump Delivery Areas

Lochend Butterfly Way / Waterfront Park / Robertson Avenue

Fountainbridge / Oxgangs Avenue / West Pilton Grove

Craigour Place / Elgin Street / Morrison Crescent

Craighouse Gardens

Heat Network Zones

New Town / Leith Walk / Old Town & Southside / Gorgie & Dalry

Craigleith / Granton / Leith / Portobello & Seafield