£320 million will be invested in schemes across the country’s towns and cities to take low carbon heat and supply it to keep homes and businesses warm.
The government is in discussion on how best to deploy the £320 million allocated in the Spending Review for investment in heat networks.
Dubbed ‘central heating for cities’, heat networks are already used widely across Scandinavian cities to keep homes warm in winter and have the potential to reduce heating costs by more than 30% for some households.
Heat can be taken from a range of sources including large heat pumps, combined heat and power plants and deep geothermal plants, which take heat from underground rocks miles below the surface of the earth. It is then pumped around homes and businesses. This not only helps to bring down the cost of energy bills, but also contributes to reducing carbon emissions.
A lot of heat is wasting through pumping it out into the air from waster incinerator plants, factories and offices, but with the help of a network of pipes we should start to see a significant improvement with this. The idea is for these pipes to catch this heat and when it is required, pump it around nearby homes and businesses.
Secretary of state for Energy and Climate Change said: “This is an important next step in developing more home-grown energy, which is a vital part of our plan to ensure long-term energy security and affordable energy for our families and businesses. The funding we’re consulting on today will enable these schemes to provide affordable low carbon energy to thousands of homes and businesses across Britain’s towns and cities.”