Green Heat Street by Street. Converting Gas to Heat.

Activities

On Wednesday 21st of February we hosted a symposium at our office in the heart of Edinburgh. The objective was to provide Government, Local Authorities, Consultants and Developers an insight into how Denmark achieved their current domestic Heat Network coverage of 66% (1.843.774 dwellings).

If Scotland are to achieve their Net Zero targets of 75% emissions reductions by 2030, over 1 million homes and the equivalent of 50,000 non-domestic buildings need to be converted to use zero emission heating systems. Their Heat in Buildings Strategy, published last year, identified heat networks as a key strategic technology for meeting this goal.

The Danish Experience, Søren Lyngholm, Vice President at Danfoss

Søren Lyngholm focussed on the practicalities and experiences of building and connecting regional heat infrastructure in Denmark.

Denmark, who although only have a relatively small number of gas network zones compared to the UK, will still need to connect 450,000 homes to district heating by 2035. By the end of 2023, 45,500 homes had converted from a gas to a heat utility.

Much of the Danish conversion is being facilitated by large-scale heat utilities utilising waste heat, tried and tested technologies, a can-do attitude, and stress-free connections for consumers.

Read more in our latest Case Stroy, Heat Concierge Scheme in Middelfart

The Green Heat Wave – Advancing Sustainability in District Heating, Sara Mehrabi, Director at COWI

Sara enlightened us with a historical overview and evolution of District Heating in the UK, along with examples of existing systems in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe.

This concluded in a review of current trends which include Integration with Renewable Energy Sources and Waste Heat, Predictive Maintenance and Operational Efficiency, Demand Forecasting and Load Balancing, Smart Grid Integration, Focus on Consumer-Side Efficiency and Heat Storage Optimisation.

Sara’s final remarks were inspiring because there is nothing new and everything should be common sense – we just need to get moving and invent the future!

Heating East Lothian… and beyond, Martin Hayman, LHEES Officer, East Lothian Council

Our Managing Director, Lars Fabricius, describes Martin Hayman as what we in Danish would call an “ildsjæl” or in English a “fire soul”.

Martin delivered a passionate but common-sense approach to a long term and futureproof method for heating the East Lothian district council.

The proposal includes a regional heat transmission highway that leverages economies of scale and harvests locally available waste heat from sources such as distilleries, disused mines, industry, and waste from energy plants. There is even capacity to build the world’s largest thermal storage pit.

The East Lothian Heat Transmission Highway has the potential to not only deliver heat to all of East Lothian but also to much of Edinburgh including Holyrood and would set a precedent that could be copied throughout the UK – eliminating fuel poverty once and for all, by making use of our abundantly available waste heat.