Local Area Mapping Tool (LEMAP)

Oxford Brookes University has brought together spatial and temporal visualisation of local energy flows to develop a local area energy mapping approach (LEMAP) for planning smart and fair neighbourhoods.

The LEMAP tool has been designed for community based organisations, local authorities and residents. It brings together public, private and crowd-sourced data on energy demand, energy resources, building attributes, socio-demographics, fuel poverty and electricity networks within the ESRI ArcGIS platform.

The tool has been organised around three technical and three engagement elements that include ‘baselining’ local area energy flows in relation to socio-economic characteristics; ‘targeting’ suitable properties for low carbon technologies (LCT) such as rooftop solar, heat pumps, EV chargers; and ‘forecasting’ energy demand profiles at postcode level for different LCT scenarios.

The engagement elements include: ‘Participatory mapping’ to allow residents to visualise their energy demand profiles, compare against the neighbourhood and see how the profile changes with LCTs; ‘Storymap’ for creating blogs on local energy flows; and ‘Forum’ to enable chats amongst users of LEMAP and project stakeholders. The LEMAP tool has been applied to Rose Hill neighbourhood in Oxford.