Diverse Heat Sources

There are numerous existing and new processes that could supply heat to the London Thames Gateway Heat Network. Facilities such as energy from waste plants and industrial process plants all have the potential to supply heat to the network.

Possible sources of heat in the future include high temperature fuel cells which have high electrical conversion efficiencies and could be supplied with hydrogen derived from London’s waste. This illustrates the flexibility of heat networks and potential to utilise heat from numerous sources and that heat networks provide the enabling and future proofing technology.

The London Thames Gateway is Europe’s largest urban regeneration region, which has a combination of existing and planned developments of medium to high density. Due to the network investment cost a suitable density of dwellings is required for district heating to be economically feasible and to capture the CO₂ benefits. Many 1960s/70s high-rise blocks area already heated by local district heating network and this enables them to connect to the London Thames Gateway Heat Network with little modification.

The Enabling Technology

Whenever energy is converted from one form to another, for instance when chemical energy from a battery is converted to light, heat is emitted. By capturing the heat for a secondary use, which could be an industrial process or district heating, a greater percentage of the primary energy is used increasing energy efficiency, conserving valuable raw energy and reducing carbon emissions.

It is possible to consider heat as a universal currency that can be sourced from a variety of energy conversion technologies and used by for diverse applications. Following the currency theme, heat can be traded as a commodity where it is brought from bulk suppliers and sold to final consumers. To facilitate the connection and distribution of heat and enable carbon dioxide reductions, through increased energy efficiency, a heat network is required.

The natural development of the heat network is expected to follow that of the UK electricity network, where local networks were constructed and used to begin with, then as demand increased the local networks joined together to form a far reaching distribution network, connected by a transmission line. 

Diverse Heat Load

Decentralised heat networks are best integrated at the beginning of new developments, where property developers can take advantage of this new infrastructure to meet their carbon dioxide reduction obligations.

Densely built areas can benefit most from heat networks because the heat does not have to travel a long distance. The opportunity for these denser parts of the city to make use of local energy generation from wind or solar power, or ground source heat pumps will be limited due to physical constraints, for example in flats. This makes heat networks particularly suitable for the London Thames Gateway and central London.

It is advantageous if there is a mix of heat consumers with different energy requirements at different times of the day. This helps to even out supply requirements. While homes may consume more energy in the mornings and evenings, offices and industry will require most energy during the day. A network which has a diversity of different loads is more cost effective and has a greater potential to reduce CO₂ emissions.