The key to sustainability? Location, location, location

Peter Mingins
General Manager Utilities at Esri UK
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Post date: Monday, 20th February 2012

The Green Deal is the latest instalment in a string of government initiatives that carry financial rewards for helping to reduce carbon emissions. They seem to work; interest in and sign-up to the solar driven Feed In Tariffs (FIT) initiative has been huge, showing that with the right incentives you really can engage the public.

The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme should also result in a marked growth in community and domestic Combined Heat & Power (CHP) and heat pump schemes.

Mass adoption is needed, however, and to be truly effective in terms of both carbon reduction and financial gain, a thoughtful approach to planning and technology roll-out is needed. For the Green Deal to be a game-changer, high level analysis is needed and geographically referenced data can deliver significant benefits in energy efficiency planning.

Energy consumption, cost, location: just some of the factors which need to be analysed and visualised together to obtain a truly holistic view of where to invest. By mapping extensive and diverse data sets, organisations can see all the factors in one place. Only when a complete picture of the local and geographic landscape is acquired can it be fully understood which locations the environment, businesses and consumers will benefit the most from different low carbon technologies.

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technology is instrumental in this process and uses location-based data management tools to assist in the decision-making processes that together form an environmental management strategy. GIS combines layers of information to provide a better understanding of that location, using disparate data sets to paint a fuller picture to answer key questions such as whether there is enough wind at the proposed site for a large-scale wind farm, or if the residents of an area find it hard to pay for the electricity they use and would benefit from insulation or smart meters to reduce household bills and carbon emissions.

Of course, surveyors can conduct assessments of the thermal efficiency of, let’s say, a public sector housing site. While this is a costly and time-consuming method, GIS instead allows due diligence without field surveys by analysing data such as aerial thermal imagery, building outlines and socio-economic statistics to identify where the opportunities to reduce heat loss are.

Nottingham City Council is already seeing the benefits of a GIS-powered interactive energy map. It forms a key part of its Energy Strategy to reduce city-wide carbon emissions by 26% by 2020 and to ensure that 20% of its energy requirements are met by renewable sources by the same deadline. The energy map highlights a range of actionable opportunities from streets that will benefit from greater wall insulation, to properties with south-facing roofs suitable for photo-voltaic panels, helping inform council decision-making. 

People must be encouraged to think spatially and geographically as it is imperative to know where things are in relation to one another in order to enable the appropriate action to be taken. It is not only relevant for businesses; consumers who are looking into the Green Deal or FIT schemes can also use geographical mapping to help make the best choice.

Indeed, Nottingham City Council has two versions of its energy map to appeal to different groups of users. So local citizens can look up their own properties on the online map to help take decisive action on their own energy-saving initiatives. Meanwhile, council planners, energy managers and local businesses can query the data and perform discrete analyses to support their decision making.

Smart meters are just one of the recent proposed measures to help reduce energy consumption and, potentially, reduce bills.For utilities companies, rolling out smart meters in the largest cities first may seem the obvious option. Yet according to a recent study from Esri UK and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) that identifies where in the UK consumers would most likely benefit from smart meters, this is not the case.

By using GIS and combining multiple sets of data, including electricity consumption, socio-economic status and household income, a picture emerged that shows that cities in the Midlands, like Nottingham, and the West-East corridor from Liverpool to Sheffield would gain the most from the planned smart meter roll-out, mainly due to residents being more sensitive to increasing electricity prices. Conversely, due to London’s broad socio-demographic diversity, the capital initially appears less suitable, although this simply highlights the need to take an even deeper street-by-street approach in a city as complex as London.

The message is clear: geographic intelligence can play a critical role identifying where to target sustainability projects, how to minimise costs and disruption, and how to maximise the emerging opportunities in the low carbon economy for both the public and private sector. Location matters.

Energy and Environment