The SWITCH to Net Zero Buildings supports Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council's (NPTCBC) strategy to adopt the innovative design concept of 'buildings as power stations' developed at Swansea University (SU) for both homes and non-domestic buildings. NPTCBC's city deal project 'Homes as Powerstations' aims to future proof 10,300 properties, both new and retrofit, within 5 years by adopting net zero principles, reducing fuel poverty and the associated health implications. Demonstrating economic impacts of net zero policies, including sustainable regional supply chain growth, diversifying and integrating with existing industries; expected £251m GVA uplift; creating over 1800 skilled jobs; and £490m investment leveraged from public and private sectors over 15 years. Uncertainties around choice, effectiveness and cost benefits of renewable energy generation, heating and energy storage effect adoption of new technologies. Significant expertise exists within the established consortium of SU, Cardiff University and the University of South Wales, that will evaluate, scenario plan, scale up and progress opportunities with civic partners (NPTCBC, the Swansea Bay City Region and Welsh Government) and the supply chain represented by Net Zero Industry Wales. Inconsistent building management systems and performance monitoring of new technologies creates further uncertainty. Consortium expertise will provide unbiased monitoring solutions to understand the effectiveness. Circular economy and sustainable building material principles will also be a key consideration. Human-centred design principles must be built technology and control systems to ensure they are appropriate and adopted. Beyond the fabric and energy systems of buildings themselves, there are broader local and regional area energy plan implications which must be modelled to provide evidence and confidence to decision making processes. Active buildings are not designed to operate in isolation. They can use their ability to generate, store and release energy to time-shift supply and enable demand side response. They can trade energy to and from other buildings, national grid, industry or transport infrastructure. If they can locally manage peaks in demand (peak shaving) they can present a lower and more stable load to the grid, allowing centralised energy sources to focus on the demands of industrial decarbonisation (South Wales being UK's second highest emitting industrial cluster) and electrification of transport. This creates communities that are more resilient to changes in supply and demand. The supply chain for active buildings itself relies on the local foundation industries, which pay on average 28% higher than other sectors in this region of high socio-economic deprivation. Consortium expertise in multi-energy system integration can be used to assess these interactions and dependencies, creating robust and responsive services at differing scales. This systems approach allows exploration of opportunities for symbiosis across different sectors. To achieve a just transition to net zero it is critical that community involvement plays a key role in developments. Societal user acceptance expertise within the consortium covers the individual psychology of behaviour and sociology of group interactions, whilst its links to experts in narrative, culture and heritage help with storytelling. The theme crosses all EPSRC strategic objectives and is directly aligned with strategic priority engineering net zero and themes of energy and decarbonisation as well as manufacturing the future. The consortium has strength in thematic areas of advanced materials, circular economy and digital twins. This PBIAA will enable flexible and agile deployment of resources to unblock barriers to adoption of net zero buildings in the region, with economic benefits felt here being replicable in other regions, and will enable collaborative projects with non-consortium partners across the UK.

Great Western Supercluster for Hydrogen Impact for Future Technologies (GW-SHIFT) is co-created by world-leading academic expertise (Universities of Bath, Exeter, Bristol, Cardiff, Swansea, South Wales, Plymouth), innovative civic partners (Western Gateway, Great South West, West of England Combined Authority) and cutting-edge industries (Hydrogen South West, Airbus, GKN, Bristol Airport, easyJet, Bristol Port Company, National Composites Centre, Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult, Johnson Matthey, etc.) to drive concentrated impact across the H2 ecosystem of South West England and South Wales. It will catalyse cross-sectoral, cross-regional and interdisciplinary opportunities for long-term impact. The ambition of GW-SHIFT is to grow from a nascent cluster to an established supercluster which is uniquely placed to lead the delivery of the green H2 economies needed to decarbonise the UK, driving joined-up impact that spans multiple sectors (maritime, road, rail, aerospace, chemicals) across the region's unique testbed of urban, rural, and coastal areas and resources. GW-SHIFT has been co-created by its academic, civic and industry partners with a shared vision to maximise the enormous potential of the region's H2 ecosystem. Its impact will power clean, inclusive growth across the region, maximising world-leading academic knowledge and H2 assets, and enabling key government strategies and targets for a low carbon H2 future. This includes Powering Up Britain and British Energy Strategy targets for 10GW H2 production capacity by 2030 and 100,000 new jobs, £13bn GVA by 2050. The creation of the supercluster directly addresses key regional strategies and action plans, including the Western Gateway's H2 vision and 'Powering a Greener, Fairer Future' strategy, Great South West's "Speed to the West," WECA's Climate and Ecological Strategy and Action Plan, the West of England Local Industrial Strategy and the Welsh Government's Hydrogen in Wales pathway. Success of the supercluster can deliver the region's targets for 17,000 new H2 jobs by 2050. GW-SHIFT will drive impact through its aims and objectives to: 1. Grow the GW-SHIFT supercluster of academic, civic and industry partners towards established and sustainable supercluster status via policy and theme conversations and academic-civic-industry secondments. 2. Deliver high impact co-created collaborative projects, with 20 short sprint projects and eight 1-2 year collaborative match-funded projects, leading to the development of new products, processes and techniques, new spin-out companies, significant follow-on funding, new jobs, and regional and national policy impacts. 3. Deliver place-based capacity building across the South-West of England and South Wales H2 ecosystem through entrepreneurial training to academic researchers (including early career), civic and industry staff, cross-mentoring programmes, and upskilling programmes to equip regional workforces for the opportunities of the future H2 economy. 4. Engage key stakeholders across the region (civic, industry, regulatory, public, schools, etc.) via public engagement, school outreach and curriculum development, wider academic, industry and policy engagement to raise awareness of the benefits and opportunities of a future H2 economy and to encourage public acceptability of hydrogen. The establishment of GW-SHIFT as a hydrogen supercluster for the South of England and South Wales will enable maximum impact from joined-up strategic advances in H2 production, storage and distribution, conversion, end-use applications (for mobility, heating, power), industrial feedstocks, and cross-cutting issues (economic, environmental, social and safety). It will be a critical enabler of a thriving low carbon hydrogen sector in the South-West and South Wales, with national and global applications, delivering energy security, skills, economic growth, supply chain development and driving Net Zero innovations.