Photo by Pok Rie
A new Energy Innovation Agency launches in Greater Manchester this week (28 April), with the aim of reducing energy consumption to help the region achieve its carbon neutral targets by 2038.
The agency will bring together world-leading academic, private and public sector expertise to focus on four core challenges around decarbonisation, including heating, energy generation and storage, low carbon transport, and energy diversity and flexibility.
The Energy Innovation Agency will be a partnership between Manchester Metropolitan University, The University of Manchester, and the University of Salford, alongside property specialists Bruntwood, Greater Manchester Combined Authority, The Growth Company, Hitachi Europe and energy firm SSE.
The agency will address a series of challenges designed to engage investors from across the UK to solve some of the energy industry’s biggest problems and accelerate the journey to net zero carbon.
Greater Manchester has a science-based target to become carbon neutral by 2038, with initiatives taking places across every one of the ten boroughs of Greater Manchester to reduce emissions.
David Schiele, Director of the Energy Innovation Agency, said: “Twelve per cent of the UK’s carbon emissions are produced from heating non-domestic buildings, of which 60% still generate their heat by gas. Reducing these emissions will be essential for the UK and, indeed, the rest of the world to speed up the progress of creating carbon-neutral cities and towns.
“As the home of The Energy Innovation Agency, Greater Manchester will be our testbed for this challenge, as well as the three challenges to follow. The potential prize extends far beyond the confines of our city region and as such we’re looking globally as well as locally to find solutions that can help to bolster this transition. We need innovators, entrepreneurs, and rainmakers to come forward with their brightest responses to this challenge – the world, literally, depends on it.”
Greener Greater Manchester will share more news on the launch of the Energy Innovation Agency as the project progresses.
