For local authorities, navigating the path to decarbonisation comes with significant challenges. Many councils grapple with balancing stakeholder interests, overcoming funding barriers, and coordinating across various teams. Additionally, the complexities of accessing reliable data, and resource constraints often lead to heavy reliance on external consultants, adding time and cost pressures to projects.
Local authorities need tools and data that empower them to take ownership of their decarbonisation pathways, reduce costs, and foster alignment with wider network infrastructure planning.
The Local Energy Net Zero Accelerator (LENZA) is a net zero planning platform developed by Advanced Infrastructure for Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN). LENZA was built upon Advanced Infrastructure’s LAEP+ platform, designed specifically to help local authorities independently create and execute effective Local Area Energy Plans (LAEPs).
By streamlining workflows, providing comprehensive datasets, and reducing reliance on external consultants, LENZA enables councils to cut the cost of creating LAEPs by up to 54%. It also aligns local energy goals with SSEN’s strategic network planning, ensuring infrastructure investments support your decarbonisation pathways.
Since 2023, over 87% of local authorities in SSEN’s licence area have adopted LENZA, using it to create more than 140 renewable energy projects.
Wiltshire Council, one of the local authorities within Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) licence area, has been at the forefront of leveraging LENZA to advance its decarbonisation efforts.
Wiltshire Council faced challenges common to many local authorities. Their climate team needed to balance competing stakeholder interests, address gaps in data availability and accuracy, and navigate the complexities of regulatory and funding environments. They also had to ensure infrastructure plans aligned with community needs while promoting equitable outcomes across the county.
The council’s retrofit team dealt with additional challenges, including the absence of a cohesive county-wide retrofit strategy, limited access to sociodemographic, building and energy data, and the intricacies of meeting grant funding requirements. These issues created obstacles to scaling up retrofit initiatives and achieving meaningful progress toward Net Zero.
As part of Wilshire Council’s Warm Homes: Local Grant bid application, LENZA was utilised to successfully strengthen its bid for funding.
The grant targets low-income households residing in energy-inefficient, privately owned homes, providing funding for energy performance upgrades and low carbon heating solutions. Eligible properties include existing domestic dwellings, with owner-occupied and private rented sector households qualifying for assistance.
By leveraging fuel poverty data, heat demand data and energy performance data to identify areas most in need, the council proposed targeted interventions such as insulation upgrades and heating improvements, ensuring alignment with the funding criteria.
The tool also allowed the council to quantify how many properties in Wiltshire were likely to be suitable or eligible for the new grant. These insights bolstered the application by clearly demonstrating how the proposed measures would achieve cost savings and carbon reductions, providing a strong business case for the bid. The precise data-driven approach not only reinforced the council’s strategy but also showcased its commitment to delivering impactful, targeted solutions.
Additionally, Wiltshire Council has also held discussions about potentially utilising LENZA in the group-buying initiative, Solar Together, offering households the opportunity to purchase solar panels at competitive prices. To support these discussions, the council is able to utilise LENZA’s building stock data, including Rooftop PV Potential insights. This capability can identify properties that are suitable for rooftop solar panels, ensuring resources could be focused on viable households. By targeting suitable properties, Wiltshire Council is better positioned to reduce outreach campaign costs and achieve higher lead conversion rates in any future initiatives, making these efforts both impactful and cost-effective.
Wiltshire Council isn’t just using LENZA in their climate and retrofit teams. The platform has been explored by departments including Highways and Transport, Strategic Asset & FM, and Strategic Planning. The various departments have utilised the tool in areas of site identification for EV charge point deployment, retrofit potential, and the early development of a Local Area Energy Plan.
LENZA’s ability to integrate diverse datasets such as network capacity data, building stock data, renewable energy potential, and socio-economic factors has allowed these teams to align infrastructure projects with the council’s broader decarbonisation goals. This cross-departmental use has fostered better collaboration and streamlined decision-making across multiple workstreams.
Wiltshire Council’s positive experience with LENZA reflects the expertise and support provided by Advanced Infrastructure. The onboarding process was seamless, and ongoing customer support has ensured the council can independently harness the full potential of the platform.
Advanced Infrastructure supported the council’s teams in making full use of the platform’s capabilities, including portfolio and scenario planning functions that enable data-driven decisions about decarbonising heat, transport, and energy generation.
Climate Officer, Wiltshire Council : “LENZA has been a valuable addition for Wiltshire Council, helping us take ownership of our decarbonisation journey with confidence. The platform’s comprehensive data and intuitive planning tools have already strengthened our funding applications, supported cross-departmental collaboration, and helped us identify key priority areas. We’re seeing promising benefits in areas like retrofit planning and solar deployment, and the onboarding process and support from Advanced Infrastructure have made getting started straightforward. While we’re still at the beginning of our journey, LENZA is proving to be a useful tool, and we look forward to seeing its full impact”.
Wiltshire Council’s success demonstrates how LENZA powered by LAEP+ can help local authorities overcome common barriers in energy planning and decarbonisation. With its powerful data integration, geospatial planning tools, and scenario modelling, the platform enables local authorities to tackle challenges such as funding limitations, regulatory complexity, and data gaps.
By adopting LAEP+, councils can reduce costs, improve project efficiency, and align local energy plans with broader strategic infrastructure investments. Whether the focus is on retrofitting homes, deploying renewable energy, or planning Net Zero infrastructure, LAEP+ can empower your teams to deliver impactful, community-focused solutions.
Book your Free LAEP+ Demo with Advanced Infrastructure and learn how LAEP+ can accelerate your council’s Net Zero ambitions, turning your energy plans into reality.
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