Project Summary
OptiHeat will transform how consumers make decisions on building fabric upgrades, heat pump and/or renewable energy technology installations. Our innovative tool optimises home upgrade recommendations and energy costs for consumers while modelling the resulting reduced load on the network.
The benefits include providing DNOs insight into the size and location of likely LCT installations – enhancing network planning efficiency and running of the networks. Additionally, it will support and empower vulnerable consumers and social landlords to efficiently upgrade their heating systems, promoting an inclusive rollout of right-sized LCTs and ensuring equitable sharing of the benefits for all in the energy transition.
Innovation Justification
Providing households with the means to optimise their housing decarbonisation investments at a national scale has the potential to radically reduce future housing-related carbon emissions, while simultaneously mitigating the need for costly grid capacity upgrades and improving thermal comfort and national health outcomes.
To realise this potential, this project will demonstrate a novel proof-of-principle evolution of Catalyst. A web app which currently enables homeowners to rapidly assess the appropriateness of substituting their boilers for heat pumps. The project will extend the scope of this app to support the identification of cost-optimal heat decarbonisation investments including building fabric upgrades, heating systems and renewable technologies.
By including relevant stakeholders and community groups (identified by South Yorkshire Community Foundation) in the tool design, the project will develop a system that is flexible enough to cater for often disparate needs of customers while offering a detailed technical solution. This type of novel intervention is a first of its kind to be developed in this field.
Discovery will define and short list use case tools, commercial and technical frameworks, and associated end-users to determine the most effective methods for interaction and intervention and to ensure that vulnerable consumer are supported. Through engagement, frameworks identified as having the maximum benefit to both networks and vulnerable customers will be proposed for development in Alpha.
A key focus for Discovery will be on the multi-objective optimisation of insulation, heating system and renewables for a single housing archetype as a proof of concept. Using the JEPlus parametric energy simulation platform a semi-detached dwelling will be modelled. This extension is shown on the right-hand side of the diagram attached in the appendix.
The project uses known technologies (insulation, heating system and renewables), so that the integration readiness level is high (IRL = 6-7), as is the commercial readiness level for able to pay customers (CRL = 6), but the online computational workflow enabling customers to identify the optimal combination of these technologies for their home is at a preliminary stage (TRL = 2-3). Additionally, the commercial readiness of more complex intervention schemes, especially those to support vulnerable consumers is low (CRL = 3).
With a broad palette of beneficiaries (individual homeowners, social housing providers, DNOs and energy utilities), there is no clear alternative mechanism to fund this work other than the SIF. Any counterfactual approach that did not build on the Catalyst tool would lead to extended delivery times.
Impacts and Benefits
Financial - future reductions in the cost of operating the network
Increasing the number of lower power heat pumps installed, while being able to anticipate heat pump load growth thanks to the planning tool, will help DNOs reduce the load on the network and the resultant need for reinforcement. This will reduce the operating costs of the network and allow for load growth mitigations through investments and awareness campaigns.
• Metrics: number of optimally sized heat pumps installed in specific area, reduction on network operating costs, heat pump load growth evolution
Environmental - carbon reduction – direct CO2 savings per annum
Lowering the barriers to installing heat pumps, by supporting vulnerable consumer groups, LAs with effective planning of retrofitting a portion of their housing stock with heat pumps and other upgrades will decrease the number of gas boilers. Not other customers can use this tool as well. This will result in direct CO2 savings.
• Metrics: number of heat pumps installed
Environmental - carbon reduction – indirect CO2 savings per annum
Increasing the number of lower power heat pumps installed will reduce the total electrical consumption of new heat pumps. As the UK electricity still has an average carbon intensity of 0.207kg emitted per kWh of electricity generated, this will act to indirectly reduce CO2 emissions.
Financial - cost savings per annum on energy bills for consumers,
Heat pump, LCT installation and fabric upgrades will increase household energy efficiency, leading to reduction in energy bills for consumers.
· Metric: cost saved per annum on energy bills for consumers following recommendations deployment (predicted vs controlled)
Others that are not SIF specific
Initial tool frameworks include:
• Enabling consumers to evaluate cost-effective load mitigating investments and automatic interfacing with the DNO
This provides benefits for:
• A DNO: visibility of new connections pipeline for validation process and increase visibility of additional loads on the network (potentially by updates/notifications), cohesive planning enabled to mitigate the effect of potentially large cumulative loads, cost-effective alternatives provided to reinforcing the network, support vulnerable consumers under RIIO commitments
• Consumers: streamline process of decarbonising home
• Vulnerable consumers: tailored support to install a cost-effective heat solution, even potential free access to the solution
• Local authorities or housing associations: cost optimal investment in their housing stock, better justification of building upgrades to stakeholders, investment and advice implications to reduce bills and the cost of potential installations.
