£57 million awarded to heat networks in Yorkshire and London

Five projects,  in Leeds, Barnsley and London, have been awarded £57 million from the Government’s Green Heat Network Fund to connect homes, businesses and public buildings to sustainable heat sources.

London is home to three of the projects which will receive £20.5m between them, connecting 8,500 homes and businesses to low heat networks using both air and ground source heat pumps.

The lion’s share of this (£14m) has been allocated to Brent Cross Town (pictured above), a regeneration scheme containing 6,700 new homes, over 50 locations for retail, food and drink, workspace for over 25,000 people and 50 acres of green space.

The funding will provide heat, generated through a fully electric energy centre, to all the residential properties as well as commercial and leisure buildings.

£3.7m has been awarded to The Clapham Park regeneration project in South London to decarbonise the existing heat network with 3MW of air source heat pumps and thermal storage. The network currently provides heat to 569 homes but there are plans to grow this to 3,347 and include a number of commercial properties. 

Hammersmith & Fulham Council has been awarded £2.5m of construction funding to provide a ground source heat pumps tp provide low carbon heating and cooling to the Grade II-listed Town Hall, 204 new homes, event spaces, offices, public spaces, a cinema and restaurant. 

Leeds will receive £24.5m to extend their LeedsPIPES network to include an additional 8,000 homes and buildings, powered using a local source of waste heat.

Barnsley will receive £12.6m for a multi-source heat pump network to decarbonise heating across a range of businesses and public sector buildings. The project also plans to explore the capture of waste heat from a nearby industrial manufacturing plant as the network expands and densifies.

The Fund is delivered Triple Point Heat Networks Investment Management whose Programme Director, Ken Hunnisett said: ‘The Green Heat Network Fund, like the Heat Networks Investment Project before it, has helped to prove the technical and commercial efficacy of district heating in a variety of different use cases. The projects announced today are a reminder that modern heat networks are at their brilliant best in our large, densely built towns and cities.

‘The £57 million investment announced today is great news for the Fund, great news for the 17,000 homes and buildings that will benefit from low-carbon, low-cost heating, great news for an industry that is growing almost before our eyes, and great news for the planet.

‘It’s a relative drop in the ocean of course when you consider the £80 billion the sector is forecast to require if it is to fulfil its enormous potential.’