£15m district heating project forges ahead

London-based network will serve 30,000 homes and businesses

Progress has been made on the delivery of a new £15m district heating network in London after the appointment of a supplier to design, build, operate and maintain the main energy centre.

The network in Enfield will serve 30,000 homes and businesses, including the £6bn Meridian Water development.

Enfield Council hopes the scheme will support its aim to reduce carbon emissions within its borough by 40 per cent by 2020. It expects homes connected to the district heating network, which will be supplied by its own energy company, Energetik, to have a carbon footprint 80 per cent lower than homes using conventional heating.

Vital Energi, who won the £15m contract, will deliver and manage the network on behalf of Energetik, whose managing director Jayne Clarke said the work that Vital Energi will undertake will deliver “the strategic infrastructure that will help to secure Enfield’s energy needs for decades to come”.

Commenting on the contract confirmation, energy research firm Delta-EE welcomed the demonstration of a strong local authority-led approach to deploying district heating, adding that the future for more such initiatives in the UK is “looking good”. 

Andrew Turton, principal analyst at Delta-ee, said: “The government’s Heat Network Investment Project (HNIP) is aiming to provide more than £300 million of funding to leverage around £2 billion of private investment, and there is no shortage of potential heat network schemes”.

However, Turton also cautioned that “in a sector where overall returns are low, continued policy support will be important for wide-scale adoption and to allow district heat networks to compete with existing gas and electricity networks.”