About 1,000 London buildings including the Houses of Parliament and the National Gallery could soon be warmed by low-carbon heat sourced from the River Thames, London Underground and sewer networks.
Plans to develop the UK’s biggest heat network to supply decarbonised heat to buildings across Westminster were set out on Wednesday by the government as part of its pledge to back seven heat network zones with more than £5m of public funding.
The plan will see a network of pipes constructed to carry excess heat captured underground to power hot water and central heating systems in the area.
The £1bn scheme will be developed by a joint venture – between heating specialists Hemiko and Vital Energi – known as the South Westminster Area Network partnership, designed to save the area about 75,000 tonnes of CO2 each year, the equivalent to planting 1.2m trees.
Across Europe, energy companies are beginning to capture the surplus heat typically released into the air from a wide range of sources, including supermarkets, transport networks and datacentres. Lower temperatures can also be captured from water sources, including rivers and sewers, and raised high enough to provide heating by using electric heat pumps.
Miatta Fahnbulleh, the minister for energy consumers, said: “Taking waste heat from the River Thames and London Underground to heat such iconic places as the Houses of Parliament and the National Portrait Gallery is a really exciting example of what lies ahead on our journey to low-cost, low-carbon heating.
“This project will help support hundreds of jobs and make bold new strides towards boosting our energy security.”
Heat networks currently help to meet just 3% of the UK’s heating needs. They are expected to play a greater role in providing hot water and warm indoor temperatures as the government aims to replace fossil fuel heating, which is responsible for almost a third of the UK’s carbon emissions.
They could be responsible for almost a fifth of all heating by 2050 under the advice provided to the government by the Committee on Climate Change on creating a net zero economy.
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Toby Heysham, the chief executive of Hemiko, said the company planned to invest £1bn over the next six years into heat networks that would allow households and businesses to make use of locally wasted heat.
“This network will be the flagship network in the UK, the first new zonal scale network in a market that offers an investment potential the size of the UK offshore wind industry,” Heysham said. “Steps like this show that the UK heat networks market is open for business.”