In December 2021, the York & North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership launched a programme of activities funded by the UK Government through the UK Community Renewal Fund (CRF), entitled ‘Delivering a Carbon-Negative energy system in North Yorkshire’.
The programme consisted of the development of local area energy plans for the region, and a series of feasibility studies across decarbonising transport, buildings and energy supply. In December 2022, the programme was completed, over-delivering on its projected outputs and outcomes.

Local Area Energy Plans (LAEPs)
A well-planned transition to net zero energy systems can save billions compared to an uncoordinated approach. Under the 2020 Carbon Abatement Pathways research, we articulated:
- what changes would be needed to reach net zero
- how big those would have to be (i.e. how many heat pumps we would need to install)
- when we need to make those changes
- an outline for how to go about implementing these changes
Local Area Energy Plans (or LAEPs) allow us to research effective technologies and approaches to address these changes for each area in York & North Yorkshire.
LAEPs were developed for all of North Yorkshire (using the CRF support) as well as the City of York, who provided their own funding to ensure we could deliver a coordinated approach to energy systems transition across our region.
The documents below constitute the full Y&NY Local Area Energy Plan, including an overview of the full region, individual LAEP areas, model and data assumptions, and a deep-dive case study for the village of Stokesley.
You can also explore some of the outputs using this interactive web tool.
See the plans in your area