Stuart Nathan, The Engineer
Summary
A system for decarbonising heating by sharing energy between buildings and using heat pumps is under trial in London
Intended to create and develop a new type of heating network described as an “Internet for heat”, that is currently reaching the end of a 27-month program funded by Innovate UK, BEN is part of an effort to decarbonise heating, which accounted for over 30% of the UK’s total carbon emissions in 2016. The government describes this effort as the most difficult policy and technical challenge in meeting carbon reduction targets, and in 2017 a requirement was set to supply 40TW hours of heat through low carbon networks by 2030, and 10TW hours by 2020. As some 80% of homes built today will still be around in 2050 the project was set up both to be suitable for installation in new-build housing and to retrofit to existing buildings.
The members of the collaboration team are seeking to demonstrate a concept for heat sharing known as a Cold Water Heat Network (CWHN), which is suitable for delivering heat from a new type of advanced heat pump operating at a normal heating circuit temperature at 80°C, alongside existing gas boilers. The CWHN is intended to be able to expand organically and link piecemeal across a city, and is linked to large-scale seasonal thermal storage from a natural aquifer and shorter term high-temperature storage in advanced water stores; all of these are to be capable of operating under control of a cloud-based demand-side response aggregator.
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