Who we are
Bristol City Leap is Bristol City Council's world-first partnership with Ameresco Limited and Vattenfall Heat UK Limited, to bring in over £1bn investment into low carbon energy infrastructure in the next 20 years.
This ground-breaking venture will rapidly increase the scale and pace of sector investment in technologies such as solar PV, heat networks, heat pumps, energy efficiency measures and electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
This will help to make Bristol carbon neutral and climate resilient.
Our joint venture
The Council has entered into a joint venture with Ameresco Limited, with Vattenfall Heat UK Limited as an essential subcontractor, to transform the way the city generates, distributes, stores and uses energy.
The venture will rapidly increase the scale and pace of investment in low carbon energy infrastructure.
Business plan
The latest business plan anticipated delivery of c.£500m of projects over the next 5 years by Bristol City Leap.
Projects include expanding the award winning heat network, solar panel and low carbon heating systems installations at local schools and energy efficiency projects on the council's social housing.
Read our Bristol City Leap Business Plan Summary.
Social value
In addition, Ameresco have made strong commitments to delivering social value for Bristol. Of their £61.5m target social value delivery they have delivered just short of £30m to date.
How the social value will be achieved
This will be achieved by the creation of new jobs, apprenticeships and work placements and spend in the local supply chain.
Community participation is a critical element of City Leap and in September 2023 Ameresco launched a £1.5m Community Energy Fund to provide financial support for the set up and development of community energy projects in Bristol.
The role
The Head of City Leap Client and Energy Service role is a vital link between Bristol City Council and our strategic partners.
In managing the day to day relationships between the council and the teams, the role ensures the strategic partnership remains on track for delivery.
The Head of the Client Function ensures engagement with City Leap across a large range of service areas within the council, and ensures that the council's corporate functions are supporting the partnership.
The role contains two key elements:
- managing the City Leap Assurance Team
- managing the Council's Energy Supply Team
The average week
In an average week, time in the role is split roughly 70% on City Leap Assurance items and 30% on energy supply.
Report structure
The role reports into Director, Property Assets and Infrastructure and sits alongside the Head of Corporate Landlord, Head of Waste and Head of Capital Projects as a departmental management team.
Support teams
City Leap Assurance Team
The City Leap Assurance Team are there to support the City Leap partnership. They provide assurances in relation to City Leap projects particularly where they will take place on the Council's estate or utilizing Council funding, and to manage the strategic partnership, including managing the overarching concession agreement itself.
Energy Supply Team
The Energy Supply Team have responsibility for purchasing the council's electricity, gas, heat and water. They manage all of our metering and billing arrangements across the council's estate, including communal supplies in social housing.
In addition, the team manage the council's own solar farm and wind turbines located at Avonmouth alongside a large rooftop solar portfolio on council and third party buildings across the city.
At present, much of the council's electricity is sleeved from our own renewable generation assets.
The Energy Supply Team has been working with City Leap to create a sleeved pool to enable the entirety of our council electricity supply, and that of other large energy users in the city, to be provided through renewable generation assets. These assets are built locally, whether by City Leap or local community groups.
There is an important link between our Energy Supply Team and project proposals brought forward by Bristol City Leap.
Bureau service
The energy supply team also provide a bureau service for the purchase of energy by other contracting bodies in the region and procures energy on behalf of Council-maintained schools through a Schools' Energy Club.