RCUK Innovation Fellowship in UK Housing Stock Decarbonisation

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Several models have been developed in the UK to predict the energy and associated carbon emissions of the UK housing stock. These have been used to predict the reductions in energy use and carbon emissions arising from alternative renovation options (e.g. insulating walls and roofs, draught stripping, fitting more efficient heating systems), based on different scenarios in terms of the adoption of these renovation options. None of the existing models is able to predict the adoption of renovation options in response to specific policy measures that are designed to stimulate them. Examples of these include building regulations, financial subsidies, taxation relief and educational campaigns. To address this shortfall, we will develop a new prototype social simulation platform that will model the likelihood that households will invest in energy reducing renovation options and / or change their energy using behaviours, in response to policy measures. This platform will be coupled with a new dynamic housing stock energy model, enabling us to predict the nationwide impacts of households' decarbonisation decisions.This combined physical and social simulation platform will be deployed in the UK to evaluate the effectiveness of alternative housing decarbonisation policy measures. To enable us to design and calibrate the social simulation platform, we will also design and conduct a pilot UK homeowners' social survey. This will be complemented with existing secondary datasets, to characterise household (to complement existing housing) archetypes and their attributes.