The UK's carbon targets, as defined by the Climate Change Act of 2008, specify an emissions reduction of 80% by 2050, which the government has recently revised down to 'net zero' for the same year. In 2017, 17% of the UK's carbon emissions were associated with non-electric use in the residential sector (64.1 Mt CO2), the majority of which were associated with natural gas space heating, cooking and domestic hot water. The UK must therefore decarbonise residential heat to be able to meet its climate change targets, but, in combination with electric vehicles (EVs), this could lead to a 200-300% increase in the UK's annual electricity demand. In terms of deployment at scale, Air Source Heat Pumps (ASHP) operating either in isolation or as a hybrid gas system appear a key technology as they are not site specific and are applicable to both new build housing and retrofit. The UK's low voltage (LV) electricity network will not however, be able to operate with unconstrained electrical heating or EV charging loads. Both loads must be deferrable or scheduled in a manner to support the electricity network and maintain substations and feeders within limits. Household electric heating has the potential to operate as a significant deferrable load which LATENT is seeking to understand and harness. This can provide benefits across scales, namely to the UK (energy security and carbon targets), DNO (Distributed Network Operator as grid support), heat pump suppliers (by demonstrating added grid value), householders (in terms of bill reduction and avoidance of peaking dynamic tariffs) and electricity suppliers by applying aggregation techniques to minimise energy service costs. The key aim of LATENT therefore, is to be able to predict the impact of customers with electrical heating (predominantly ASHP) operating with 3rd party deferrable heating control on the LV network at the feeder / substation level. 3rd party control in this context would be through the energy service supplier, with whom, unlike the DNO, a household has an existing financial contract relationship. LATENT will inform industry of the potential of 3rd party control of deferrable heat through a rigorous field experiment, and, in doing so, accelerate the transition to decarbonised household heating. LATENT will determine the influence of householder personality trait (OCEAN traits: either positive / negative as Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism) alongside more traditional Census metrics such as educational attainment, house type etc to deliver a multi-variate regression model to describe deferrable heat reduction at the household level. A substation or feeder can then be analysed in terms of its household type mix (10% C+ detached, 30% E- flat etc) to produce a composite substation level, deferrable heat reduction estimate. This model will be realised through field trials with LATENT's industrial partner, Igloo Energy. Igloo have a customer base with smart heating systems and ASHP which support remote 3rd party control. LATENT will test (i) householder's stated acceptance to deferral of heating (in terms of temperature drop and duration) through focus groups and surveys, (ii) actual acceptance of heat deferral through heating season field trials, and (iii) operation of a commercial deferrable heat tariff with a sample of Igloo's customer base.

The overarching goal of the project is to generate an enduring and world-class step-change in the transdisciplinary capability of the UK marine policy stakeholder and research community to implement diverse values for decision making and support the sustainable management of the UK's marine resources. Diverse values refer to the many dimensions of value including economic values, social and cultural values, aesthetic values, and natural values and how they might be accounted for in decision-making frameworks such as instrumental values, intrinsic values and relational values. Marine environments and human well-being are inextricably linked through complex and multi-layered socio-ecological systems that span terrestrial, coastal and ocean domains. While this complexity is widely acknowledged in theory, current models of marine resource management practice (which themselves are highly complex, multi-scaled and interconnected) do not adequately adopt the necessary transdisciplinary approaches to use diverse values or have the means to align them to decision making and policy development. The transition to transdisciplinarity and diverse values is a challenge faced by marine science and policy communities worldwide and is acknowledged as a global science priority for the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (UNESCO 2019). It is a cross-cutting challenge which affects all marine management priorities. The inclusion of diverse values, particularly of a qualitative nature, into UK marine management processes is crucial, but at present is outside the experience, capability and comfort zone of many institutions and individuals in the marine management research and practitioner community. The aims of this project drive an innovative agenda of transformational research that both significantly advances our understanding of values-based marine management and which provides actionable tools and approaches that can feed directly into contemporary marine management practice in the UK. Working across three test study sites of Portsmouth / Newhaven, Upper Severn Estuary and the Shetland Islands the aims of this research are: 1. to generate a new conceptual basis for transdisciplinary marine management and research that allows multiple and diverse human values to be incorporated into marine management in the UK. 2. to synthesise existing ecological and economic data with new diverse values approaches (collected using methods from largely outside the marine community) to produce groundbreaking transdisciplinary and holistic understanding of how coastal communities value marine resources and their management. 3. to evaluate, through on-the-ground testing, how diverse values can: 1) be used to unlock the potential of ocean literacy to become an actionable policy tool; and 2) be integrated into marine governance institutions and practices to unlock a step-change in sustainable outcomes. 4. to create and implement a national-scale transition plan to support the UK marine management and research community to mainstream transdisciplinary approaches. A key aim of the project is to create a step-change in the capability of the UK marine sector to consider diverse values and the transdisciplinary approaches needed to operationalise those values. We have approached this by developing a research programme that is focused on co-constructing how diverse values can be used in policy and practice by developing transdisciplinary working practices both within academia and more broadly with diverse stakeholders. The aim of the project is to create a change in the practices of marine management in the UK. The project legacy will be an increased understanding and implementation of diverse values into marine policy and decision making and the creation of transition plans for institutions to facilitate embedding transdisciplinary practices into the operations of organisations.