Thomson, Lesley
Project Title:
Characterising energy demand profiles for future low-carbon homes
Abstract:
The UK is faced with challenging targets for decarbonising homes, with a particular emphasis on low-carbon heating. For both new builds and retrofits, the scale of required change is unprecedented.
Concurrently, the carbon intensity of the UK’s National Grid is decreasing, largely through an increase in renewables. This picture provides an interesting question: how can a robust pathway be proposed that accommodates changes to both demand (particularly heating) and supply technologies that allows for a robust, low-carbon future to be assured?
This project will bring together data to create typical demand profile templates for different housing categories. It will also attempt to address diversity of use, thermal inertia, and heating/storage technologies, so that demand flexibility opportunities can be ascertained. A methodology will be presented that can address many of the problems associated with a rapid transition of heating technologies on the journey towards low and zero-carbon heating in UK homes.
Supervisors:
Professor David Jenkins
Dr Andrew Peacock