Alice Owen

Reducing carbon, tackling fuel poverty: adoption and performance of air-source heat pumps in East Yorkshire, UK

Deploying heating technologies, such as air-source heat pumps (ASHPs), can respond to the dual challenges of tackling fuel poverty and reducing carbon emissions from domestic energy consumption. In the UK, ASHP performance has been found to be below design levels. Elements of three strands of literature – innovation diffusion, environmental psychology and neighbourhood effects – are combined to gain insights into why the adoption and performance of ASHPs are lagging policy targets and design potential. Evidence from users, installers and area-based scheme facilitators suggests that the perceived complexity of the technology is a barrier. The level of technology maturity and the typical profile of the elderly fuel poor do not match; the target group might prefer to be late adopters or laggards in adopting technology. The role of installers is critical as the disruption from installation is a barrier to adoption and ASHPs place demands on users to change existing practices.

Outside influence – Some effects of retrofit installers and advisors on energy behaviours in households

We analyse qualitative data from home energy retrofit projects in England, looking beyond the boundaries of the building and its design for human behavioural influences on home energy use. We recognise that energy use is not solely determined by the decisions of building users or designers, but that intermediaries involved in energy retrofit may also be influential. Our focus is on retrofit which encompasses a range of changes to existing buildings to alter energy use. Decisions to incorporate new energy technologies into the home (both energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies), and how these technologies are then used, are shaped by the advice and action of energy efficiency advisers and energy technology installers (intermediaries). Understanding the nature of this influence, and how it might be directed to increase energy efficient behaviours, is an overlooked opportunity. We found that influence was greatest at the pre-installation stage, and that influence which could be exercised post-installation was not realised. We conclude that by recognising how the role and influence of intermediaries varies at each stage of the retrofit process, policy and action can be identified to enhance the contribution intermediaries can make to changing behaviours and reducing domestic energy use.

Recasting Urban Governance through Leeds City Lab: Developing Alternatives to Neoliberal Urban Austerity in Co‐production Laboratories.

This article reports on a research project, Leeds City Lab, that brought together partner organizations to explore the meanings and practices of co†production in the context of urban change. Our intention is to offer a response to the crisis in urban governance by combining the growing academic and practitioner debates on co†production and urban laboratories in order to explore radically different institutional personae that can respond to deficits in contemporary urban governance, especially relating to participation and disenfranchisement, and ultimately unlock improved ways of designing, managing and living in cities. Our analysis has identified four key ways in which co†production labs can recast urban governance to more progressive ends: by moving beyond traditional organizational identities and working practices, embracing grey spaces of new civic interfaces, foregrounding emotions and power and committing to durable solutions. Ultimately, what we point towards is that urban governance can be more effectively enacted in co†production labs that bring together universities and the public, private and civil society sectors on a basis of equality, trust and openness. These spaces have the potential to unlock a citys knowledge, resources and assets, to unpack complex challenges and to build capacity to deliver improved city†wide solutions.

Making the case for simulation: Unlocking carbon reduction through simulation of individual ‘middle actor’ behaviour

This paper makes the case for agent-based modelling as a route to unlocking the potential of existing buildings to reduce energy demand and contribute to achieving carbon reduction targets. The construction of a model to simulate this system requires significant innovation in data collection and handling. The need to focus on ‘middle actors’ in construction – specifically the tradesmen who carry out repair, maintenance and renovation – in order to reduce energy demand in existing buildings is described. This is the first work that proposes to simulate these actors. After identifying this opportunity, the paper considers what modelling techniques are required to describe the possible effects of changes to middle actor behaviour across the construction industry. Having discussed the different types of data needed, the paper uses the ‘overview, design, detail’ approach to describe how an agent-based model might be developed, using rule sets derived from middle actor data. Finally, the types of interventions that might be tested are outlined, indicating how policy and practice could be informed by the proposed modelling approach.