The Committee on Climate Change's most recent assessment of the UK's progress towards meeting its carbon budgets shows that UK emissions are 41% below 1990 levels. The UK Government's Industrial Strategy white paper states that this has been achieved while the economy has grown by two thirds. In our journey to meeting a reduction of at least 80% compared to 1990 levels, the Committee states that we must reduce emissions by at least 3% a year. They also say that despite the above progress we are not currently on track to meet the 2023-27 carbon budget.

Clearly, significant further effort and innovation is required to meet our statutory obligations in this area. In line with this, the Government's Industrial Strategy identifies Clean Growth as a grand challenge stating "We will develop smart systems for cheap and clean energy across power, heating and transport ... We will launch a new Industrial Strategy 'Prospering from the energy revolution' programme to develop world-leading local smart energy systems that deliver cheaper and cleaner energy across power, heating and transport". The Industrial Strategy also points out that Innovation in clean growth is critical for low cost, low carbon
infrastructure systems, and for realising the industrial opportunities needed to deliver economic benefits. In response to this the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) has launched the Prospering from the Energy Revolution (PFER) programme. It is focused on delivering (by 2022) investable and scalable local business models which use integrated approaches to deliver cleaner, cheaper, energy services for more prosperous and resilient communities. The resulting smart local energy systems should also benefit the national energy system as a whole. It also targets a ten times larger future-investment in local integrated energy systems versus business as usual in the 2020s while creating real world proving grounds to accelerate new products and services to full commercialisation. A major element of the activities is building UK leadership in integrated energy provision.

To support the PFER programme, UKRI launched a call to establish the Energy Research Research Consortium (EnergyREV) to support this journey. A workshop was held in Birmingham to form and shape the consortium and to initiate the development of this proposal. The resulting EnergyREV consortium is diverse and highly multidisciplinary, incorporating 88% of the researchers who were selected for the workshop.

EnergyREV will work with the Energy Systems Catapult to enable and inform demonstrators and demonstrator design projects (funded by the PFER programme) through their lifetime; undertaking analysis and evaluation, building and driving best practice and, leading knowledge exchange through national and international engagement with policy, academic and industrial communities. Further to this, EnergyREV has shaped and defined a strategic programme of applied interdisciplinary research which aims to achieve significant outputs in the areas of whole energy systems and smart local energy systems. This will inform future energy investment by companies and Government. It will coordinate and integrate existing UK world-class knowledge, research teams and facilities, and through this provide advice, research and innovation support to help ensure the success of the PFER programme.

Potential Impact:
EnergyREV has the national impact aim of unlocking a factor of ten increase in future-investment in local integrated energy systems in the UK in the 2020s, and the international impact aim of creating a long-term legacy of learning and understanding for global leadership in local smart energy systems provision. To do this we aim to make EnergyREV the 'go-to' location for integrated local energy systems knowledge. To maximise reach, the research will be translated into language appropriate for the various relevant audiences and disciplines and made accessible to all levels of expertise from members of the public to the Secretary of State. Communication methods will be tailored to the needs and information channels of specific audiences, for example policy briefings styled on POSTNotes for Government to interactive visualisations for general audiences.

The EnergyREV team will coordinate with other major energy systems research initiatives to maximise the impact of the work. Explicitly this will include working with UKERC Phase IV, CREDS, the CESI and the ESC to ensure messages are delivered through their workshops and dissemination channels to reach additional academic, industrial and policy stakeholders. This will also ensure that their activities influence EnergyREV, and that there is no duplication of effort.

Internationally, EnergyREV will work with and through the International Energy Agency to create a platform for global leadership in smart energy systems provision with maximum return to the UK.

EnergyREV will work collaboratively with other partners in the Prospering From the Energy Revolution (PFER) Challenge and leverage their pathways to impact. These have yet to be defined but will include supporting the work of the Demonstrators and collaborating with the Energy Systems Catapult through its role as leading the Energy Revolution Integration Service.