Development and evaluation of a method to estimate the potential of decarbonisation technologies deployment at higher education campuses

Abstract This paper describes a method for the quantitative estimation of the potential of decarbonisation technologies deployed on Higher Education Campuses (HEC). This was developed to fill the need for a practicable and standardised method to provide preliminary estimations of the deployment potential of building integrated photovoltaics (PV), micro-wind turbines, rainwater harvesting and ground mounted PV at HECs. The method identifies two key variables, namely roof area and open carpark area, to aid estimation of decarbonisation technologies deployment at HECs, using Google Earth imagery coupled with publicly available online HEC maps. The method was trialled for the higher education sector in Ireland identifying major potential for deployment of decarbonisation technologies for the sector. The building decarbonisation aspect of the proposed approach is applicable to sectors outside HEC particularly commercial and industrial sectors due to similarity in building footprint characteristics. The open carpark component of the methodology is also applicable to city-scale analysis due to uniformity in form of open carparks worldwide. This highlights the usefulness of this method through informing city-scale transitions towards decarbonisation.