The country boy taking it to the city

For a man whose hobbies include fell running and hill walking, it can seem contradictory that Antony Meanwell spends most of his working time exploring distinctly urban issues, supporting cities with their decarbonisation plans.

Perhaps it’s the clean air of his home in Cumbria that inspires him to work with cities on their net zero goals, even though he takes great pains to explain how the wider benefits to our communities of transforming our energy system that go way beyond carbon emissions and air quality.

“Transforming heating in homes and businesses brings benefits way beyond the purely environmental,” says Antony, pictured above outlining our Sheffield heat network concept during a visit by HRH The Princess Royal to our Blackburn Meadows energy plant.  “Changing our relationship with energy – both how we capture it, produce it and consume it – can have an impact on everything from housing and health standards, cleaner and more comfortable city streets, education, and jobs and skills.” 

Antony is E.ON UK’s Head of Heat Zone Development, leading conversations with cities such as London and Sheffield on how they can lead the energy transition, meet environmental targets, and benefit their citizens in the process. As an evangelist for the energy transition, Antony acknowledges this is “a big challenge” but he is keen to point out just exactly where those benefits fall; within communities, across cities, and up into nationwide success.

“It’s also a big opportunity,” he says. “The transformative impact of heat zoning goes beyond simply putting pipes in the ground. It’s about how we help with sustainable urban drainage, how we plant more trees. Cities want to be healthier so how do we put in new cycle ways and increase walkways? It involves improving public spaces, promoting sustainability, and creating social value.”

Antony’s current focus is working with Sheffield City Council and the City of London Corporation, two bodies recently chosen by the Government as testbeds of the heat zoning concept which will fundamentally transform the development of heat networks in towns and cities, ensuring more homes and businesses can access greener, cheaper heat. It’s a complex task, and a cookie cutter approach is not the solution.

“It isn't one-size-fits-all and it isn't ‘you’ve got to do it this way’. It's about getting into a city, understanding what challenges and opportunities are there. The energy sources will be different and also what's important for that city will be different. For example, in Sheffield – the 4th largest city in England – they feel the city is punching below its weight and over recent years they’ve been trying to reinvent themselves from an innovation perspective.

“For any city, a big part of this is problem solving. How do you unlock available waste and renewable heat and create a solution that can deliver it where it’s needed? In Sheffield you have manufacturing sites, or we can tap heat from sewage works, but in London one of the challenges is you don't have a big steel works in the City, your industries are all outside and you have to capture the heat then transport it through other boroughs into the heart of the city. This is about understanding that and then working out how you create a workable solution against those very bespoke challenges and bespoke geography and demographics.

“Added to the technical is the human challenge. We're at the start of what's going to be a huge growth industry and as a country we don't have the workforce or the supply chain. This is a great opportunity to be at the start of something and create those new skills and help grow that supply chain – and it’s the people in our cities who can benefit from that in terms of jobs and skills.” 

That ambition is critical as the Government wants 20% of heat demand around the country to be met from district heating schemes – up from about 3% currently. Such a target puts an added burden on cities and other densely populated areas where this technology works most effectively. 

But what about the thorny issue at its heart – who exactly is funding this transformation? Perhaps unsurprisingly, Antony has an answer to that as well.

“Last year we at E.ON invested £600 million across 15 countries in energy infrastructure solutions. For the next five years we're going to invest up to five billion so some of the money will come from here. But there are actually opportunities in this new market to potentially look at, other options such as the National Wealth Fund, a government bank that's been set up to specifically invest in infrastructure. We've also started to see interest from pension funds.”

A scientist by training, Antony received a degree in physics from Manchester University, but he turned away from pure sciences to focus on business consultancy, starting out in mobile telephony but soon putting his energy conservation MSC to good use with energy management specialists Matrix (now E.ON Control Solutions). Antony is firm on his approach that he has “never sold a product, I’ve always sold solutions” with the idea that “helping people to understand their challenges and trying to create solutions”.

And it’s that solutions-minded approach that puts him at the heart of conversations with those pioneering cities, being able to “join the dots” of opportunities, challenges, policies and community benefit.

Joining the dots, as much as connecting customers and suppliers, will be vital for the move to new green infrastructure, and an energy transformation equally on a par with the shift to gas central heating in decades past. As Antony says: “Each city will be different, and I guess that’s what makes it different and exciting.”