What’s the context?
We live in times of global warming. Records for average temperatures have been broken for month in a row and while greater efforts are made in reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, more could be done to reduce the negative aspects of energy production. As a result, action is required on all levels — international, national, but even locally. In the past years, as part of smart grid initiatives, researchers looked into dashboards and peer comparison within the neighborhood to encourage reductions in energy use on the local level. Increasingly communities can take a greater role in encouraging reductions in local energy through, for example, community energy dashboards to gain greater awareness of the impacts of their energy consumption.
What is the challenge?
The project looks at Jesmond where there are only a handful of solar installations at present. Your challenge will be to assess the viability for an energy dashboard, for example as part of an energy cooperative. As part of this you would design a prototypical map of the various installations. Co-operatives and community-interest companies are interesting constructs as potential vehicles for delivery of more solar installations.
What are the deliverables?
- A mapping of the renewable energy infrastructure (e.g. solar installations, charging points) in the Jesmond area. Ideally you would also be able to obtain some historic data feeds on energy output over a given time frame.
- The ideation and proposition of platform fostering the idea of shared ownership of energy on the basis of some real-world data generated from solar panels in the area. Generate some sort of measure how much energy is generated on a daily basis.
- Your project could address questions such as how residents would add a renewable energy resource to the platform; and how the platform would indicate progress towards energy reduction targets?