New heat network project awarded £20 million in capital round • City council extends heat network to make better use of recovered heat sources • Public-private-partnership to invest £100 million in low-carbon energy solutions • Read more about the developments in sustainable heating and cooling in this month's news update from the UK
Liverpool’s northern docklands are currently undergoing a massive city development though the ‘Liverpool Waters’ development scheme. While the full program stretches over the coming three decades, a substantial number of dwellings have already been built and a new low-carbon heat network has been commissioned. To finance further grid expansion, additional investments of £5.5 million have now been secured by the consortia.
The heat network will be supplied by a combination of large-scale heat pumps and recovered heat from natural gas fired CHP-power stations. Once fully extended, some 9000 homes and businesses in the area will be connected, which will reduce annual carbon emissions by 4200 tonnes.
To deal with the construction of the grid, ownership, heat production, distribution and operations, a dedicated company has been incorporated. It will be named ‘Mersey Heat’ and will annually, once completed, provide over 19 gigawatt hours of heat energy, to customers in Liverpool Waters and the greater waterfront area.
Read more in article from The Business Desk
To further harvest recovered low-carbon energy from the local energy from waste (EfW) plant Leeds council has approved a £7.2 million budget towards an expansion of the local heat network. The project is co-financed by the UK Government’s Heat Network Investment Program (HNIP), which has contributed £3 million of the total amount. Construction works were initiated in September 2022 and will, once completed, extended the grid by over 2,500 meters.
The heat network will be supplied by the existing “Cross Green Energy Centre”, operated by Vital Energy, which in turn is supplied with recovered hot steam from ‘Leeds Recycling and Energy Recovery Facility’ (RERF) operated by Veolia. In 2021, almost 14,000 MWh of low carbon heat was delivered to over 2,000 households, business, and public buildings.
Through the new extension, another 9 sites within the city will be connected to the heat network – potentially increasing annual supplies with another 11,600 MWh of clean, affordable, and reliable low-carbon heating to households and businesses across the city of Leeds.
Read more in article by Leeds City Council
Read more in article by Leeds City Council
Newly incorporated ‘Midlothian Energy Limited’, a 50/50 joint venture project between Midlothian Council and Vattenfall Heat UK, pledges £100m worth of investments in low-carbon energy projects. The project timeline is five years and involves investments within a wide plethora of sustainable energy projects, largely focused on low-carbon heat networks.
The project partners have developed a strategy to deliver city-wide heat networks that can provide heat to the equivalent of 170,000 homes in Midlothian, Edinburgh and East Lothian by 2050. The new heat network will be supplied by a combination of heat recovery from; local industries, mine-workings, and sewers, and heat generated from local Energy-from-waste (EfW) plant ‘Millerhill recycling and energy recovery centre’.
The first phase of the project will connect 33,000 households, businesses, and public buildings to a new heat network, and is estimated to save over 90% of emissions compared to dwellings fitted with individual gas boilers. The first phase is expected to start delivering heat in 2024 and has received £7.3m from the Scottish Government’s Low Carbon Infrastructure Transformation Project (LCITP).
Read more in article from Midlothian View
Read more in press release from Vattenfall Group
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