In 2023, the Scottish Government required that all 32 local authorities publish a Local Heat & Energy Efficiency Strategy (LHEES) by the end of the year.

Hamish Martin won the BE Changemaker Award for his role in developing Fife Council’s LHEES, the strategy behind driving clean heat in the Scotland’s third largest authority, supporting Scotland's net zero and fuel poverty goals.

Background

Hamish joined Fife Council’s Climate Change & Zero Waste Team as a new entrant to the built environment sector, working as a Strategy Officer for the development of their LHEES. He quickly took onboard the challenge of developing, and driving delivery of, Fife’s first LHEES. Hamish also has a leading role in other energy projects linked to decarbonising Fife’s built environment.

LHEES are at the heart of a place based, locally led, and tailored approach to the heat transition. They underpin an area-based approach to heat and energy efficiency planning and delivery.

In January, when Hamish joined Fife Council, all Scottish local authorities in Scotland were required to publish a strategy and delivery plan by the end of 2023. These plans focused on local priorities and actions for decarbonising heating and improving energy efficiency.

Creating a Local Heat & Energy Efficiency Strategy

Fife Council had several unique features and challenges which Hamish identified needed carefully considered and implemented into their LHEES:

• Scotland’s third largest authority (~200,000 buildings).
• High levels of fuel poverty.
• 3 heat networks which could be expanded.
• 40% of homes with no clear decarbonised heating solution.
• ~20,000 traditional buildings (~6,000 listed).
• Significant developments/energy projects competing with heat pumps/networks for electricity.

Wider challenges Hamish identified included a lack of understanding of whole building solutions, damp/mould risks, skills gaps, building community wealth, and interaction with the wider energy system.

Hamish quickly took onboard these challenges and analysed how each should be tackled in the LHEES and beyond. The first stage of this was stakeholder engagement with experts to help understand each challenge. Hamish then reviewed the national LHEES methodology to determine where it should be amended to better reflect Fife’s priorities and incorporate the challenges.

He embraced the LHEES challenge, created a stakeholder network, adapted Fife’s approach, influenced and informed other areas, and published the document one month in advance of the deadline, in November 2023.

Impact

Hamish’s efforts meant Fife was the 3rd Council to publish their LHEES. Hamish has also taken an active role in various forums and steering groups sharing learnings with others in the sector and been invited to speak at 3 national conferences.

He has engaged stakeholders to make Fife’s LHEES the foundation to take forward critical projects to improve Fife’s built environment. It has also been placed at the centre of the Council’s “Big Energy Move.” Since the start of 2024 Hamish has been ensuring each project aligns with the Council’s priorities to maximise effectiveness and he has created and is managing the following projects.

Decision-making system

Fife's ‘Optioneering model’, which Hamish developed, is a tool able to identify suitable building level actions for domestic properties. Hamish identified indicators linked to stakeholders’ priorities, which were scored low (negative impact) to high (positive impact). The outcome is a visualisation of impacts of different retrofit scenarios at the building level, which is being used to aid decision making for actions. This ensures Fife has actions which can be delivered and have positive impacts on communities.

Heat Network Zoning

Large-scale heat networks are a priority for Fife. They provide a mechanism to decarbonise the built environment, tackle fuel poverty at scale, and act as a balancer for the electricity grid. Hamish took a leading role to develop a new zoning process based on heat demand of building shells rather than properties. This allowed more zones to be identified, and existing zones from the LHEES to be larger. Hamish engaged with experts (Vattenfall, Ramboll, Danish Board of District Heating) to review the approach and determine how to categorise zones to identify their viability. The outcome Hamish created was a model which clearly identifies lower risk zones for developers to progress, meeting Council priorities of large-scale heat networks.

Energy Plans for Towns and Settlements

Hamish has been a driving force behind Fife’s development of innovative place-based energy plans, starting with a pilot plan for Dunfermline & Rosyth.

Hamish determined in the LHEES we cannot plan heat decarbonisation of buildings without considering how this interacts with the wider energy system. Hamish is developing the energy plan as a prospectus and shared vision for the area.

It will explore and model a large-scale heat network vision and consider how energy generation, storage, and resilience opportunities and constraint risks may impact a network.

This plan will give Fife stakeholders all the information required to understand feasibility of a large-scale network to support a future business case. Hamish also completed a thorough review across Fife to identify areas with short term priorities for heat network planning. This tool will greatly help the Council in energy planning and prioritisation of projects moving forwards, using a place-based approach.

Hugh Muschamp, Lead Climate and Energy Officer at Fife Council says, “Hamish has gone far beyond the statutory requirement of publishing an LHEES.  His work has taken the brief to understand what information and projects are needed to practically improve Fife’s built environment. He has created an integrated approach including retrofit, heat decarbonisation, and energy planning, and engaging crucial delivery stakeholders throughout. Hamish has not only understood the complex energy work in a council but has also taken on challenges and developed solutions to move this work forward at greater pace. We are really pleased with the significant amounts of work Hamish has achieved since he joined Fife Council."