F u t u r e E n e r g y D e m a n d i n U K H o u s i n g
331
FUTURE ENERGY DEMAND IN UK HOUSING UNDER CLIMATE
CHANGE
Young Ki Kim¹*& Hasim Altan¹
¹
Building Environments Analysis Unit (BEAU), School of Architecture, University of Sheffield, UK
¹*
Corresponding author
¹
Abstract
The domestic building sector is responsible for approximately 27% of all UK carbon
emissions. In the UK, an average household carbon emission is approximately 5 tonnes
CO
2
per year and mainly caused by space heating, which is mostly provided by natural
gas central heating with wet system/radiators that has no fixed system for space cooling.
In the past, this was always the case due to the fact that overheating was not an
important issue and provisions were never considered in dwellings for cooling demand.
However, after the 2003 heat wave incident, several European countries and the UK
considered installation of cooling systems in homes. It is expected that the use of air
conditioning will become popular in dwellings if warming climate is experienced in the UK
such as the cases in year 2003, 2006 and 2009, which were due to the effects of global
warming. If cooling systems were to be commonly installed, this is likely to significantly
increase the UK electricity consumption in dwellings. Yet, in terms of heating demand
under climate change, warming climate experienced in winter months will be shorten the
period of heating, and therefore will reduce the demand for space heating and hence for
natural gas consumption.
The paper examines the likely impact on heating and cooling energy consumption, and
carbon emissions from heating and cooling systems in existing dwellings under the IPCC
TAR A2 climate change scenario, considering years 2020s, 2050s and 2080s.
Furthermore, it studies whether the reduction in heating demand can offset the increase
in carbon emissions from cooling systems in UK housing. The findings have shown that
the heating demand will still be dominant over the space cooling requirement in
dwellings by the 2080s in the UK, and more general trends have been presented with
further discussions in the paper.
Keyword:
Climate Change, Space Heating, Cooling Energy Demand, Carbon Emissions
Introduction
The energy used in homes accounts for more than a quarter of energy use and carbon
dioxide emissions in Great Britain (DEFRA 2006). More energy is used in the domestic
sector than other major sectors such as transport or industry, and it represents a key
opportunity to cut the UK’s energy use and CO
2
emissions. Moreover, the UK
Government has set very ambitious target to achieve a sharp reduction of greenhouse
gases (GHG). The Climate Change Act 2008 requires the UK to reduce GHG emissions
by at least 80% by 2050 and by at least 34% by 2020, compared with the baseline year
of 1990 (DECC 2009). In order to achieve the reduction targets, the UK Government has
tightened regulations for building standards in 2010 and furthermore, zero carbon
building schemes have been introduced (by 2016 all new build domestic buildings and
by 2019 all new build non-domestic buildings must be zero carbon).
Nonetheless, these schemes have not considered the cooling energy demand in the
housing sector due to Climate Change and Global Warming. A warming UK climate with
more frequent hot summers under climate change could lead to increased discomfort in
buildings, which can also lead to increasing installation of air conditioning (AC) systems
in the domestic buildings. Air conditioning use is rising by 8% annually in the UK, which
