Installing heat networks to replace home gas boilers in urban areas is an investment opportunity worth tens of billions of pounds, an energy company has said.
Heat networks use a centralised source of heat – anything from a large heat pump drawing energy from water in a canal or disused mine to waste heat from a data centre – and pipe it to nearby buildings where it is used to heat rooms and water. Projects Vattenfall is already working on include a heat network in Brent Cross Town, London, for 6,700 new homes and three million square feet of commercial space, powered by heat pumps and other low carbon sources.
Vattenfall’s water heat pump in Bristol, drawing heat from the water for the district heating system Ms Curtis welcomed moves to introduce zoning for heat networks, which will designate zones where heat networks are expected to offer the lowest cost solution for clean heating, and where new developments and larger buildings will be required to connect to a heat network within a certain time.
“We can do this for new build developments quite successfully using existing planning policy and decarbonisation drivers, it’s much more challenging to do it in the retrofit market.”