YIMBY Generation – yes in my back yard! UK householders pioneering microgeneration heat

Roy, Robin; Caird, Sally and Abelman, Jennie (2008). YIMBY Generation – yes in my back yard! UK householders pioneering microgeneration heat. The Energy Saving Trust, London, UK.

Abstract

This report summarises the responses to a survey of over 900 households (the largest such UK study to date) who were considering or buying microgeneration heat technologies. It reveals what makes people buy or reject them and provides insight into their experience of microgeneration.
It covers four technologies, all of which were eligible for grants under phase 1 of the Low Carbon Buildings Programme (LCBP):
– Solar thermal hot water
– Ground source heat pumps
– Wood-fuelled boilers
– Automatic pellet-fed biomass room heaters or stoves. This report concerns part of an Open University and Energy Saving Trust project that aims to evaluate carbon saving microgeneration heat technologies for UK households, funded under the UK Higher Education Innovation Fund's Carbon Connections programme. This report builds on previous Open University research on consumer adoption of household renewables (e.g. Herring, Caird and Roy, 2007) and summarises the results of a scoping study on what drives and inhibits consumer adoption. This study also forms the background for a detailed technical and user evaluation by the Energy Saving Trust and Open University of a selected microgeneration heat technology – heat pumps – in real UK domestic installations.