Decarbonising Nottingham's Housing Stock: Integrating Built Environment, Sociodemographic and Behavioural Data to Achieve Equitable Decarbonisation Ro

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EPSRC
EPSRC
EPSRC
EPSRC
EPSRC

No funds listed.

Sept. 30, 2021

Sept. 30, 2025

This PhD aims to develop policy interventions that aid the decarbonisation of Nottingham's housing stock while also considering the implications of new housing policy on fuel poverty. Upgrading the energy efficiency of Nottingham's housing stock constitutes a vital facet of Nottingham City Council's (NCC) decarbonisation plan. In fact, the heating of houses alone contributes ~25% of citywide emissions in Nottingham (NCC, 2020). The primary heating type is mains gas (i.e., natural gas) in ~80% of homes in Nottingham. Given that natural gas is a potent fossil fuel, housing policy in Nottingham and across the UK should prioritise the installation of low-carbon or renewable energy home heating systems to reduce housing emissions. Failure to reduce the current overreliance on gas boilers will also leave the public vulnerable to highly volatile gas prices. In addition, the Consumer Prices Index (CPI), which is the metric used by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to gauge the annual change in cost of living, rose 4.9% from January 2021 to January 2022 (ONS, 2022). The combined effects of an inefficient housing stock, increased energy costs and record rises in the cost of living are likely to plunge more households into fuel poverty.

This project's research questions are as follows:

Can fuel poverty/vulnerability be predicted on a house-by-house or street-by-street basis via the integration of built environment, socioeconomic and demographic data?
Does behavioural variation in energy consumption patterns significantly increase a household's risk of fuel poverty?
How might large-scale retrofits (e.g., replacing most gas-based heating systems with low-carbon alternatives) affect levels of fuel poverty and housing emissions?
How do recent rises in the cost of living affect the way in which people consume energy and what is the trade-off with other essential expenses, e.g., food and transport?
Research Question 1 will investigate the level of granularity required to provide socially and environmentally effective policy interventions. The literature suggests that the most relevant data required to achieve this are related to built environment characteristics (e.g., quality and energy efficiency of homes), socioeconomic status (household income) and demographic information (e.g., age, ethnicity, gender) about the occupants (Belaïd, 2018). Following the integration of these data, a mapping tool will be developed to identify the areas of Nottingham at greatest risk. Research Question 2 will require the collection or acquisition of energy consumption data to investigate how behavioural variation affects the risk of fuel poverty. This may require the physical installation of sensors in households or the acquisition of energy consumption records from energy providers. Research Question 3 will forecast the impact of large-scale retrofits (e.g., replacing all gas boilers in social houses) on fuel poverty and carbon emissions, via building simulation software and statistical forecasting methods. Lastly, Research Question 4 will attempt to determine the spending trade-offs made by Nottingham residents given the rising cost of living and quickly rising energy prices. This will also provide useful insights into other types of poverty, such as food insecurity.

Potential Impact:
We will collaborate with over 40 partners drawn from across FMCG and Food; Creative Industries; Health and Wellbeing; Smart Mobility; Finance; Enabling technologies; and Policy, Law and Society. These will benefit from engagement with our CDT through the following established mechanisms:

- Training multi-disciplinary leaders. Our partners will benefit from being able to recruit highly skilled individuals who are able to work across technologies, methods and sectors and in multi-disciplinary teams. We will deliver at least 65 skilled PhD graduates into the Digital Economy.

- Internships. Each Horizon student undertakes at least one industry internship or exchange at an external partner. These internships have a benefit to the student in developing their appreciation of the relevance of their PhD to the external societal and industrial context, and have a benefit to the external partner through engagement with our students and their multidisciplinary skill sets combined with an ability to help innovate new ideas and approaches with minimal long-term risk. Internships are a compulsory part of our programme, taking place in the summer of the first year. We will deliver at least 65 internships with partners.

- Industry-led challenge projects. Each student participates in an industry-led group project in their second year. Our partners benefit from being able to commission focused research projects to help them answer a challenge that they could not normally fund from their core resources. We will deliver at least 15 such projects (3 a year) throughout the lifetime of the CDT.

- Industry-relevant PhD projects. Each student delivers a PhD thesis project in collaboration with at least one external partner who benefits from being able to engage in longer-term and deeper research that they would not normally be able to undertake, especially for those who do not have their own dedicated R&D labs. We will deliver at least 65 such PhDs over the lifetime of this CDT renewal.

- Public engagement. All students receive training in public engagement and learn to communicate their findings through press releases, media coverage.

This proposal introduces two new impact channels in order to further the impact of our students' work and help widen our network of partners.

- The Horizon Impact Fund. Final year students can apply for support to undertake short impact projects. This benefits industry partners, public and third sector partners, academic partners and the wider public benefit from targeted activities that deepen the impact of individual students' PhD work. This will support activities such as developing plans for spin-outs and commercialization; establishing an IP position; preparing and documenting open-source software or datasets; and developing tourable public experiences.

- ORBIT as an impact partner for RRI. Students will embed findings and methods for Responsible Research Innovation into the national training programme that is delivered by ORBIT, the Observatory for Responsible Research and Innovation in ICT (www.orbit-rri.org). Through our direct partnership with ORBIT all Horizon CDT students will be encouraged to write up their experience of RRI as contributions to ORBIT so as to ensure that their PhD research will not only gain visibility but also inform future RRI training and education. PhD projects that are predominantly in the area of RRI are expected to contribute to new training modules, online tools or other ORBIT services.