How we're meeting our green targets and achieving the objectives set out in the One City Plan and our Corporate Strategy
In January 2023, the council entered into a 20 year strategic partnership known as Bristol City Leap. Partnering with Ameresco and Vattenfall Heat UK, Bristol City Leap is intended to increase of investment into Bristol to help reduce carbon emissions and fight climate change.
Under the Bristol City Leap arrangements, the council now has a pre-procured provider for all low carbon energy infrastructure projects it undertakes. The projects include:
- renewable installations
- energy efficiency for council buildings
- expanding low carbon heat networks across the city
- installation of electric vehicle charging points
- smart energy
The relationship with Ameresco and Vattenfall is managed by the council's internal City Leap Client team. The team also manages the council's energy usage as an organisation.
You can find out how the council went about procuring our strategic partner and how the partnership works in our case study film:
Our achievements in Bristol
Prior to standing up City Leap, the council's energy service had delivered a number of clean energy projects to benefit local communities. This included:
- helping over 2,000 private and council-owned homes to become warmer and healthier through upgrades to their energy efficiency
- delivering a multimillion pound solar investment programme on our corporate and community buildings, by installing over 8 Megawatts (MW) of solar PV across the city, enough to power 8000 homes
- establishing a best-practice community energy fund, to support over 50 local community groups with sustainability and energy efficiency projects
- investing nearly £2m in energy efficiency refurbishments across council-owned buildings, which helps us save £1m annually on our energy bills
- becoming the UK's first local authority to build and manage our own large-scale wind turbines, having created a 6.8MW council owned and managed solar and wind farm in Avonmouth which could generate enough clean energy to power over 14,000 homes
- launching the first section of our low-carbon and lower-cost heat network in Redcliffe and Temple Quarter, as well as several mini heat networks for social housing across the city
- meeting and exceeding our target to reduce carbon emissions by 60%, 3 years early
We've committed to Bristol becoming a carbon neutral city by the year 2050. The City Leap partnership aims to build on the groundwork laid by the council and accelerate the pace of decarbonisation across Bristol.
Bristol City Leap is required to publish an annual business plan setting out their progress and plans for the next 5 years. This can be found on the Bristol City Leap website.
Energy efficiency help for residents and businesses
Bristol City Leap has a range of services available to both residents and businesses that can help to reduce energy bills and improve the energy efficiency of homes and premises.
For more information: