A new framework is being launched this week that shows how fair and acceptable deployment of net-zero technologies can be delivered.
Local communities must be consulted about – and benefit from – large-scale decarbonisation industries built in their areas, researchers say.
Read more ›Follow Sussex Energy Group
Why Rishi Sunak made yesterday’s announcement about delaying the ban on new petrol and diesel cars and weakening the gas boiler phase out is fairly obvious – an attempt to drive a wedge between the Conservatives and Labour. This strategy is also fairly obviously built on Tory success in using the ULEZ for this function in the Uxbridge by-election, and with the possibility that manipulation of social media can again play a part.
But the real question is why it has taken so long for such a strategy to emerge. The UK liberal economic model is built on flexible labour markets, for which read low pay and economic insecurity for a large section of the population, which in turn means that any suggestion of climate policies that impose costs on people is risky. The evidence is clear that people’s attention to these costs increases during phases of economic turmoil. At the same time, our first-past-the-post electoral system produces a highly competitive political culture and incentives for parties to attention to the demands of voters in marginal constituencies over delivering public goods.
Read more ›Follow Sussex Energy Group 
The UK government watered down action to Net Zero in a speech by the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on 20 September 2023.
Read more ›Follow Sussex Energy Group By Dr Beatriz Aguirre-Martínez
In this post-Covid period, we need new investments in jobs and skills after a significant economic contraction. As part of a webinar series for the CREDS project, a team of researchers led by the Sussex Energy Groups’s Tim Foxon, examined how Brighton and the North of Tyne Combined Authority could use Local Green New Deals to provide this investment, while also responding to the Net Zero Challenge. Here’s what they found.
Read more ›Follow Sussex Energy Group 
For many experts, Smart local energy systems (SLES) are crucial to the UK’s transition to a Net Zero energy system. Over the last two years, a research team led by Professor Adrian Smith at the Sussex Energy Group has analysed developments in smart local energy systems (SLES) in the UK, as part of an ESRC-funded research project called ROLES.
Smart local energy systems are connected systems made up of technologies that generate, store and manage renewable energy. For example, a smart local energy system might be a household with solar panels, battery storage, smart appliances and smart meters, that could be be integrated with the local energy network to feed back energy when it is needed elsewhere.
Read more ›Follow Sussex Energy Group 
