Towards a Smart Energy City: mapping a path for Bristol

Bristol has ambitions to become a smart energy city. But the gulf between that welcome goal and current practice is significant. And the factors shaping its realisation are many; from energy system design and data-analytic capabilities to market rules and regulatory issues, with social and cultural influences bearing heavily on what is possible.

The Bristol Smart Energy City Collaboration's goal for 2015 has been to understand these factors and develop a road map outlining the steps which need to be taken to enable Bristol to bridge that gulf. We've had a particular focus on what needs to be done in 2016 as the first next steps.

Sharing our work so far

We're spending an afternoon on Monday 14 December 2015 sharing our initial road map and what we think are those key next steps for 2016. We will also explore how best to take the next steps and outline our thoughts on the opportunities and challenges of city-scale action on smart energy for any British city, not just Bristol.

Attendees will hear from collaboration leader Simon Roberts OBE and from some of the collaborators, as well as expert reactions to these emerging findings from Judith Ward (Director of Sustainability First), Dr Andrew Garrad (Chair of Bristol 2015 and member of DNV-GL’s supervisory board), Dr Jeffrey Hardy (Head of Sustainable Energy Strategy at Ofgem) and others.

Tea and coffee will be available from 13.45 for a 14.00 start, and we'll end the afternoon at 16.45 with tea and cake and an opportunity to network.

About the Bristol Smart Energy City Collaboration

Led by the charity, the Centre for Sustainable Energy, the Bristol Smart Energy City Collaboration has brought together a range of public, private, voluntary and academic sector expertise and interests and engaged more widely through a series of expert workshops. It forms part of the charity’s contribution to Bristol 2015 European Green Capital. CSE gratefully acknowledge the generous funding support towards our work on this initiative from the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts.

More information on the Bristol Smart Energy City Collaboration is available at https://www.cse.org.uk/projects/view/1296.

Any questions about this event, please email simone.farquharson@cse.org.uk