DEMAND AND CARBON EMISSIONS OFFSET The starting point to the whole carbon neutral community pathway is the assessment of the demand and carbon emissions of the community. PAGE OVERVIEW: Demand Profile Offset Options: Renewable Energy Supply Load Shifting Green 'Offseting'     DEMAND PROFLES The daily energy demand profile is essential in the early design stage of Renewable Energy supply systems. This is in order to ensure the optimum sizing in the demand supply balance analysis enabling accurate costing of systems. However, the majority of Renewable Energy supply applications are based on the typical-national demand profile which are supplied by the DTI or B.R.E. This can lead to a series of problems associated with either high installation and equipment costs due to over sizing, or insufficient supply to cover the load in the case of under sizing. Especially in medium to big scale applications, like our case study, the problem can become more serious. There is a variety of reasons that can make the energy demand profile of a community to differ for the National-Typical. Below are some of them: • Different Housing Stock • Different types of Occupancy (Households) • Different occupant consumption behaviour Hence, a more specific demand profile is required to reflect the energy loads of the community. This should be based on the consumption patterns of individuals and then use these patterns to formulate the community’s demand profile. The team has identified that such an approach in formulating the demand profile should require a rather simple method suitable for use at the early design stage of Renewable energy supply. Hence, the Team has developed a method and then translate this method into a user-friendly tool that can provide a rough estimation of the energy demand profile for almost any residential community being analysed. The tool can be found in the tools section of this website. For convenience reasons we slit this tool into the “Electricity demand profile generator” (E.D.p) and the “Heating Demand profile generator” (H.D.p). Both are available in the tools section as well as some explanation of how they work and what limitations the team faced in terms of modelling.   OFFSET OPTIONS With the demand profiles in place, it is easier to choose which option/s can be taken to offset the demand and carbon emissions. The options are: Renewable Energy Supply Load Shifting Green 'Offseting'   1. Renewable Energy Supply Renewable energy is energy that is obtained from sources that are essentially inexhaustible, unlike the fossil fuels, of which there is a finite supply. Most importantly, renewable energy is a source of energy that does not emit carbon dioxide or/and has zero net carbon emission. At the community scale, renewable energy supplies could be obtained via micro-generation technologies which include: • Ground source heat pump • Air source heat pump • Solar thermal hot water • Wind turbine • Solar PV • Mini/Small scale hydro • Biomass Demand and carbon offset by renewable energy can be further maximized in a community by implementing “Load shifting” wherever and whenever possible.   2. Load Shifting In cases where the peaks of the renewable supplies do not coincide with the peak of the demand, load shifting could be implemented to make full use of the available renewable resources. For instance, the peak of solar radiation, that is to be harnessed by solar PV, is normally available during the mid-day due to the varied position of the sun. However, during a normal weekday, the peak demand for domestic sector in the UK will only occur during the late evening of the day. Demand and supply peaks, in this case, do not coincide with each other which results in wastage of solar resources. This excess of solar resources can be met by shifting the demand peak from late evening to afternoon. However, this requires changes in consumption pattern and thus the life style of the domestic users. Nevertheless, if load shifting can be implemented on top of renewable energy supply, the remaining demand and carbon in the community can be offset effectively. The graphical representation of the load shifting is as shown in Figure x below.   3. Green 'Offseting' Other measures that can be taken to offset the remaining demand and carbon in a community is called “Green offset”. Green offset can be done by planting trees in the community and try to avoid cutting down trees unnecessarily. By carrying out this, the ecosystem of the area will be more balance where enough trees can help to absorb the remaining carbon dioxide and produce more oxygen or fresh air for the residents. However, the size and the location of the planted trees must be made sure not to block the wind and sun light for the use of micro-generation technologies.