Ricardo consortium to develop integrated energy solutions for public sector facilities

Ricardo is to participate in a ground-breaking pilot project with the aim of assisting the deployment of smart, integrated energy solutions to cut energy costs and carbon emissions across the public sector estate.
 
Modern Energy Partners (MEP) is a collaborative project between Energy Systems Catapult, and the UK Government’s Cabinet Office and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), working with Crown Commercial Service, SALIX and private sector specialists including Ricardo. The project has received £2m in funding from the BEIS Energy Innovation Programme.
 
The project aims to leverage private sector expertise in cutting-edge smart, integrated and optimised energy efficiency solutions that combine low carbon generation, storage and energy demand management to benefit both the public sector estate and the wider energy system.
 
Ricardo is one of four leading private sector suppliers that have been appointed, following a competitive tender, to develop integrated energy solutions across four public sector sites, which include a university and military bases. Ricardo will lead a consortium that will focus on the estate of HMP Sheppey Cluster, a group of prison facilities located in the county of Kent.
 
The Ricardo consortium - which includes Peter Brett Associates and Osborne Clarke - will evaluate potential strategies for innovative integrated energy solutions at the Sheppey estate, which offer the potential to reduce carbon emissions and energy expenditure. The methodology used will ensure that the solutions recommended are repeatable and scalable, providing a future-proof site energy plan for the Sheppey Cluster as well as valuable lessons for future initiatives across multiple public sector campus sites of all types.
 
“Ricardo is extremely pleased to have been awarded the contract to participate in this ground-breaking pilot project and to lead one of the four consortia developing and applying innovative integrated energy solutions at a major public sector facility,” commented Ricardo Energy & Environment project director Christine St John Cox. “Energy is a significant element of the operating costs for major public sector facilities, from university campuses to military bases and prison estates.  It is crucial that the carbon emissions of these important facilities are minimized, and energy costs optimised. The work of the Ricardo-led consortium and the other partners of the MEP project will, I believe, be instrumental in the long-term more sustainable development of the UK public sector estate, while providing valuable lessons for other large-scale facilities in both the public and private sectors globally.”