Infrastructure provision business models that promise resource efficiencies and additional benefits, such as job
creation, community cohesion and crime reduction exist at sub-national scales. These local business models,
however, exist only as isolated cases of good practice and their expansion and wider adoption has been limited in
the context of many centralised systems that are currently the norm. In this contribution, we present a conceptual
agent based model for analysing the potential for different actors to implement local infrastructure provision business
models. The model is based on agents’ ability to overcome barriers that occur throughout the development (i.e.
feasibility, business case, procurement, and construction), and operation and maintenance of alternative business
models. This presents a novel approach insofar as previous models have concentrated on the acceptance of
alternative value provision models rather than the emergence of underlying business models. We implement the
model for the case study of district heating networks in the UK, which have the potential to significantly contribute to
carbon emission reductions, but remain under-developed compared with other European countries
