Decarbonising UK Households

Climate Change is one of the most pressing global issues today, and UK households are contributing to greenhouse gases released and trapped within our atmosphere that are warming the Earth. So how do we effectively decarbonise our homes?

Dr David Sprake, Senior Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering, investigated this for his PhD. David gathered current scientific information on climate change, outlining the possible consequences of continued fossil fuel usage. Energy usage and its carbon footprint is now monitored across the world, leading to targets and projections about what could happen, such as sea level rise, mass migration and shortage of housing, and less availability of freshwater. Worldwide governments formed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to attempt to tackle this very real and imminent threat to the world. 

The UK Government created a 2006 Zero-Carbon Homes policy that stipulated all new-build homes should be carbon neutral by 2016. In 2015, the government abandoned the policy due to the impossibility of achieving it. So, what is the solution, moving forwards?

David says that a major transformation of the global energy system is required to mitigate the impact of climate change, which needs involvement from politicians, businesses, and the general population. The transformation could concern renewable energy at national scale, creating a grid that draws on energy from a variety of renewable sources, e.g., wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear energy. As UK housing emissions comprise 27% of total UK carbon emissions, it is important that we turn our attention to renewable low-carbon energy for domestic housing. 

The aim of David’s PhD research was to investigate the optimal solution for a zero-carbon emissions housing estate in the UK that would satisfy housing developers, planners, and customers. There is a chronic housing shortage in the UK and housing supply is not in keeping with demand. The target of building enough houses for the population is in contra to the target of reducing carbon-dioxide emissions; thus, the work comprised extensive financial and energy modelling analyses to find a viable solution. David found that it would be possible to supply energy for household electricity, hot water, space heating, and electric vehicle charging using renewable energy, albeit not at a constant rate. 
The optimum solution depended on the house builders or house buyers’ motivations; for engineers, wind turbines and electrical energy storage came out on top, but financially, the best solution would be wind turbines only. For an average house size, a new buyer might have to pay extra outright, but they would be saving money on their yearly energy bills. 

At scale, David found an optimum energy-supply solution to a 1000-house estate in Yorkshire considering current engineering and technological advancements, finance, affordability, safety, and community. The solution proposes a model for complete decarbonisation of UK households, which could provide approximately 85% of energy self-sufficiency per year. 

Read more about analysis of microgrid with renewable energy sources and stakeholder analyses of attitudes to zero-carbon house building.