Halcrow Group Ltd was commissioned by Advantage West Midlands in November 2007 to undertake the Heat and Energy Mapping and Decentralised Energy Feasibility Study for the West Midlands region.
The report is available and the full datasets can be requested in GIS format from enquiries@wmro.org at the West Midlands Regional Observatory.
Why was the study undertaken?
The recent Energy White Paper asked Regional Development Agencies to identify opportunities as to how they could bring forward Decentralised Energy projects.
This work was commissioned in response to the Energy White Paper and on-going low carbon futures work, and sought early feedback and buy in to the approach from key external stakeholders at a workshop in May 2008 (workshop outcomes (Word, 72Kb) are available).
Advantage West Midlands published the first low carbon regional economic strategy Connecting to Success in December 2007 and delivery plan in April 2008, and the region is committed to developing a low carbon economy.
The West Midlands currently imports around 60% of its heat energy and an even greater percentage of its electricity.
Considering the overarching role of Advantage West Midlands as an enabler of sustainable economic development in the region, the agency seeks to reduce the region’s reliance on fossil fuels and improve energy security. Promoting the uptake of decentralised energy is envisaged to contribute significantly towards achieving this vision.
Within this context, the key aims of the study are to establish an evidence base to help inform the public and private investment on decentralised energy projects, combined heat and power solutions in particular.
The specific objectives of the project include:
- Estimate the current and future demand for heat and electricity in the West Midlands region.
- Review the current gas and electricity supply networks in the region.
- Build on the demand and supply evidence to identify potential domestic, public, commercial and industrial opportunities for decentralised energy solutions, combined heat and power in particular.
- Appraise the technical, practical, and economic feasibility of the above opportunities.
- Provide information to stimulate the market for skills and business opportunities in the decentralised energy agenda across the region.
Based on the identified objectives, the study adopts a two phase approach:
Phase 1: data gathering and mapping
Data gathering and mapping including lower super output area level domestic, public, commercial and industrial heat and electricity demand estimation and review of the gas and electricity supply networks.
Phase 2: analysing the data
Analysis of phase 1 outputs to identify potential combined heat and power scenarios, test their feasibility and engage key public and private stakeholders to promote these opportunities.
What does the study show?
The study maps domestic and non-domestic heat and electricity demand by super output areas (LSOA) and has identified a series of scenarios that have been put through economic and technical modelling to identify the best options for supporting decentralised energy.
More examples of the types of maps produced can be found here.
Seminar outcomes
A seminar was held in May 2008 presenting the work to key stakeholders. Download the outcomes from the event (Word, 72Kb).
Example maps
The study has produced a number of example maps. Full access to the data and the GIS layers used to produce this work can be found on the Downloads tab.
The images represented on this page are taken from the executive study of the report and are shown here to give an indication of the outputs of the report.
Figure 1: Current and additional domestic heat demand density
Figure 2: Current and additional domestic electricity demand density
Figure 3: Current and additional non-domestic heat demand density
Figure 4: Current and additional non-domestic heat demand density
Figure 5: Overview of the spatial analysis
