Rural energy accessibility profiling to enable effective energy decarbonisation research

Accessing energy is a key challenge to rural users of energy. The forms of energy required and available to rural energy users is much more varied in addition to electricity and grid gas such as oil, LPG gas, coal and wood. This splintering of the forms of energy used inefficiencies and therefore increases cost, resulting domestically in high rates of fuel poverty and health and safety implications from greater exposure and risk from more toxic and 7greater polluting fuels. This varies from urban energy systems where typically only gas and electricity from the grid are used in relatively higher, safer and cleaner energy efficient devices and buildings. With the broader societal goal to decarbonise the energy we consume in all walks and aspects of life, understanding on a local level the current conditions is key to best develop archetypes of typical rural energy users that will be different from urban energy users to better develop decarbonised energy systems in these places. This work begins to develop archetypes of rural energy user, informed by surveys carried out to rural residents and broader collating of figures. It is key to do this as rural dwellings are much more varied in age, quality, technology and climate compared to urban dwellings which increases the difficulty of developing an archetypal representative rural dwelling. Developing archetypal dwellings is important in developing a base common model of a dwelling to enable more effective research in rural energy decarbonisation with technologies and measures such as hydrogen, heat pumps and insulation. Particularly rural off grid homes, which can be difficult to characterise and develop effective research or policy.