Net Zero Terrace

Net Zero Terrace has been awarded funding through Ofgem's Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) Round 2 Discovery Phase. 

Watch our 60-second project summary video here.

Electricity North West began delivery of this project in April 2023 alongside partners Buro Happold, RV Energy, Rossendale Borough Council and Northern Powergrid. 

The community-led 'Net Zero Terrace' project will be the first to explore utilising a DNO network to decarbonise terraced communities through an integrated, optimised community virtual power plant, taking a smart integrated systems approach to low carbon heat. The benefits include enabling communities to decarbonise whilst reducing costs by avoiding the expensive counterfactual of direct electric heating and deferring network reinforcement. The shared heating system will comprise shared ambient loops, home thermal storage, home energy management and community storage, with the potential to provide flexible services to the DNO. The SLES will require a local energy market to operate in the form of a ledger platform (digital platform, aggregates generation and allows Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) transactions) to manage PPA contracts between the shared assets and individual homeowners.

This project sits under Innovation Challenge 1, Project Scope 2, and will focus on supporting the decarbonisation of heat for consumer groups with reduced access to opportunities for decarbonisation by demonstrating the benefits of an integrated SLES. 

This page will be updated with any project learning as we move through the SIF process.