ABSTRACT
A plethora of low carbon transition policies and scenarios project an urban future founded on low energy consumption in a sustainable socio-technical system. This chapter is an exploratory account of some implications for urban energy retrofit of the current forms of knowledge at work in financial markets, and their standardising, delocalising assessments of value. The arguments advanced in the chapter are hence derived from discussions with financial and energy market experts, participation in specialist cross-sector workshops concerned with solutions for district energy finance, interaction with government policy makers, and with district energy suppliers and developers through the UK Combine Heat and Power Association. Retrofitting of urban heat networks requires skills and capacities not just in project development, engineering and management, but also in relation to infrastructure finance. Dominant modes of financial evaluation hence tend to work against locally-customised urban energy retrofit, unless profitability for private investors is pre-given by factors such as the anticipated reputational value of investments.
