Project SCENe

A new housing development in Nottingham’s Trent Basin will operate entirely off the gas and electric grids, generating and supplying its own heat and electricity locally. Community Energy Systems (CES) already have the necessary technologies—solar panels, heat pumps, local batteries—but they remain too expensive for individual homeowners to buy, and no proven business model exists to convince companies to invest at scale. This project addresses that gap by treating a real 120-home development as a testbed. The consortium brings together energy suppliers, housing developers, and potential buyers to design and trial business model templates that could make CES commercially viable. If successful, Project Notch could give developers of large housing projects a ready-made financial and operational blueprint for building grid-independent neighbourhoods. That would mean lower energy costs for residents, more efficient use of distributed renewables, and a measurable cut in carbon emissions from the UK’s energy system—without relying on upgrades to the national grid. The impact is on the infrastructure that quietly powers homes and businesses, not on daily consumer behaviour.