Domestic energy consumption and social living standards : a GIS analysis within the Greater London Authority area

Abstract: People’s everyday needs are expressed in demands for goods and services. These demands are directly related to the production processes and the use of resources, including energy resources. Domestic energy consumption depends on the weather conditions, the energy performance of the building, and fuel prices. The domestic energy consumption and its related CO2 emissions are closely related to the lifestyle and values, changes in technology, residents’ preferences, geographical factors and socio-economic conditions of the residents. Households restrained by socio-economic situation use less energy due to the amount of financial resources which can be allocated for this purpose. The objective of this thesis was to investigate using Geographic Information System (GIS) whether there is a correlation between CO2 emissions from domestic fuel use and the socio-economic condition of residents. The results of this study showed that economically disadvantaged households tend to have lower CO2 emissions compared to economically viable households. Detached houses have been found the most energy inefficient of the household types, because these houses have a larger wall area and more windows than any other similar sized household type. Also the study shows that the private rented properties have the lowest uptake of energy efficient measures among the different tenure types, because although the owner pays the installation cost they do not benefit from lower energy bills. The UK’s energy efficiency policies were designed to install energy efficiency measures in isolation from the socio-economic conditions of the households. The spatial analysis carried out in this study makes it possible to combine knowledge of socio-economic condition of the household, tenure and the type of houses to identify geographically the areas which should be prioritized. The methodology developed in this study makes it possible to combine all the necessary elements to benefit the work of the policy makers and energy companies responsible for installing energy efficiency measures and most importantly help to identify the most vulnerable people. In conclusions the most deprived areas with high energy demand should be prioritised for the installation of the energy efficiency measures. Whereas the least deprived areas with high energy demand can be prioritised for behavioural change campaigns such as switching of lights if not need it, heating just the rooms’ people live in, etc. Additional to the behavioural change campaigns local government could use council tax bands in a combination with an Energy Performance Certificates for each household to create a charge for the council tax based on the amount of energy used. This will encourage reducing the energy use by behaviour change and/or installing energy efficiency measures.