Methods of charging for heat, occupant behaviour and price elasticity on a decentralised social housing heat network

Abstract

This thesis examines a case-study of a decentralised social housing heat network in Portsmouth, UK, to establish the price elasticity of heat as a commodity, within a decentralised social housing network context. An extensive review of the network was undertaken at four levels; generation, distribution, building and user level. The network had no existing heat metering at the building or user (household) level. User level monitoring, with supporting participant surveys, was conducted over a full heating season within 50 households across the network, along with concurrent building level monitoring. Observed behaviour was consistent with a lack of concern for energy use due to the current shared cost recovery charging method. High adapted thermal comfort temperatures, low occupant interaction with the heating system and excessive heat consumption has led to an overall performance gap of 42.6%. A review of current and historic management and operation practices at the network uncovered significant losses of revenue to the local authority owners through mismanagement and errors. The study developed a unique heating algorithm which can interpret heating behaviour and interaction from simple temperature data collected through the user level monitoring. This information was used to develop household types, against which alternative methods of charging for heat could be modelled. The thesis proposes a novel ‘stepped’ method of charging for heat at the user level within a communal heating network to reduce heat consumption and subsequently reduce heating costs and carbon emissions while minimising instances of fuel poverty. Elasticity modelling suggests that in the context of this case-study, heat as a commodity is inelastic, with an average modelled elasticity of -0.08. This highlights the vulnerability of the tenants to any change in charging strategy, where care must be taken to account for their thermal adaptation to higher temperatures and their disconnect between heating use and financial cost.

More information

Identifiers

ORCID for Samuel William Charles Paine: orcid.org/0000-0002-6300-8275

ORCID for Abubakr Bahaj: orcid.org/0000-0002-0043-6045

Catalogue record

Export record