District heating (DH) has become a common strategy for new developments to reduce carbon in order to satisfy planners and meet building regs. But despite its prevalence, in the UK we frequently get district heating wrong.
Most of what we do at work relates to DH in one way or another. At Insite we provide meter reading and customer care to several thousand people on district heating schemes. We take residents’ calls, help clients set tariffs and assess efficiency data, among other things. At Fontenergy (one of Insite’s two parent companies) we’ve project managed the design and install of DH networks and we operate centralised plant for ourselves and others. In our efforts to get DH right, we once even imported one of the best DH contractors from Denmark and worked with them to install a network in North London.
When it’s done right, DH is a cost-effective strategy for delivering low carbon heat. What’s more, it’s an essential technology for decarbonising heat in the UK (mainly because relying entirely on the theoretical decarbonisation of the grid in order to electrify heat is nuts, but that’s another post). The reality is we need DH, but often we don’t do it right.
Again and again, networks are poorly designed, poorly installed, part commissioned and then forgotten about for years at a time. As a result, expensive pipes that were meant to last more than 30 years degrade much more quickly. Schemes operate with abysmal efficiencies, increasing the cost of heat. Oversized or poorly insulated pipes turn communal spaces into saunas. And developers and housing associations get increasingly frustrated with a technology that they think doesn’t work.
This is the first of a few posts on DH networks: why we so often get it wrong and how to get it right. The intention is to highlight the key problems that result in inefficient and expensive systems. And also to pull together a set of practical measures that I think lead to better DH schemes.
One thing: I’m going to concentrate on the networks themselves rather than the sources of heat. This is really about pipes rather than CHP or biomass or energy from waste, because in my view it’s the networks where we really get it wrong.
DH network performance is a big topic (these posts can only touch on key issues), but it’s one we have to tackle. DH is at a crucial point in its early development in the UK, a point that was passed quite a while ago in Denmark, Germany, Sweden and other European countries. We’re really just getting started in the UK and several of the trailblazers (in particular providers of social housing) have had bad early experiences.
So it’s crucial that we now look at why some of these schemes aren’t working and, just as importantly, identify strategies for getting it right in future. I hope you find the posts useful.
Next post: a quick word about DH network efficiency
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