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The decarbonisation of residential heating is crucial if the net-zero target in the United Kingdom is going to be achieved. This paper describes methods to produce data to quantify the impacts of residential heat decarbonisation on the energy supply infrastructure across England and Wales. For the year 2018, annual heat demand for a range of dwellings was estimated for almost 35,000 local areas (known as Lower Layer Super Output Areas: LSOAs). Energy savings through implementing the potential energy efficiency measures and the indicative costs of the energy efficiency measures were quantified. Profiles were synthesised for heat production and energy demand of selected heating technologies using average daily temperature and data from trial projects. These profiles were created to study the impacts of different types of heating technology in each LSOA under user-defined heat decarbonisation pathways. Data describing the dwelling stock, heating technologies, annual heat demand for each LSOA, indicative costs of energy efficiency improvements for each local authority and the profiles for each technology were created., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

There is a need for major greenhouse gas emission reductions from heating in order to meet global decarbonisation goals. Electricity is expected to meet much of the heat demand currently provided by fossil fuels in the future and heat pumps may have an important role. This electrification transformation is not without challenges. Through a detailed narrative review alongside expert elicitation, we propose four principles for heat decarbonisation via electrification: putting energy efficiency first, valuing heat as a flexible load, understanding the emission impacts of heat electrification and designing electricity tariffs to reward flexibility. As a route to heat decarbonisation, when combined, these principles can offer significant consumer and carbon reduction benefits. In the short term these principles can encourage the smooth integration of heat electrification and in the longer term these principles are expected to reduce the scale of required infrastructural expansion. We propose a number of policy mechanisms which can be used to support these principles including (building) regulation, financial support, carbon standards, energy efficiency obligations and pricing., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2020 The Authors.)