Damie Emmanuel Yusuf
24th March 2023
Upscaling Smart Local Energy System (SLES) is vital for the successful roll-out of a zero-carbon future. To realise the potential of SLES, we must understand what enables them to develop and what prevents the upscaling of these systems.
The SLES Pathway Tool is based on four pathways associated with upscaling which have been derived utilising a Transition Map derived from literature and through engagement with SLES practitioners and expert researchers:
‘Set-up’ pathways
• Local Authority
• Case Study.
‘Growth’ pathways
• Economic Competitiveness
• Grid Technology.
The Local Authority and Case Study pathways depict important drivers in the SLES set-up phase. For the Economic Competitiveness and Grid Technology pathways, key drivers for SLES growth phase are described.
The SLES Pathway Tool examines significant underlying drivers, barriers and enablers across the four key pathways and then recommends Action plans based on the outputs from the EnergyREV research. The recommended actions plans are suggested to overcome the barriers and/or facilitate drivers based on key aspects of the system namely policy/regulation, business finance and markets, organisations and skills, technology and systems and user and communities. It also indicates key actors or groups of actors for each action.