Eon to rollout low carbon network at 6,000-home London development

Eon and property developer Lendlease have signed an agreement to build a low-carbon energy network for more than 6,000 new homes and business properties at Silvertown in east London.

The 760,000m² Silvertown site will be the UK’s first development to implement Eon’s ectogrid system for heating and cooling properties.

The ectogrid network consists of decentralised heat pumps interconnected on a common low temperature grid with energy storage.

Through cloud-based software, the network uses traditionally “untapped” energy sources such as waste heat from data centres and shares excess energy between the site’s buildings.

By using ectogrid, Eon claims that external energy sources will only be fed into the system when all available energy has been shared between the buildings on the site and harnessed from the local sources.

Eon claims that ectogrid network will save approximately 4,000 tonnes of CO2 a year – 88% less than traditional gas boilers.

Marc Spieker, chief operating officer of customer solutions at Eon, said: “Around half of the energy in Europe is used for heating and cooling, mainly from non-renewable sources such as fossil fuels.

“This is precisely why we offer our customers innovative, reliable and affordable solutions in this area, using pioneering technology to reduce the CO2 emissions of entire neighborhoods or cities.”

Ed Mayes, development director at Silvertown, added: “Sustainability is at the heart of everything we do at Lendlease and a low-carbon energy network is central to our vision for Silvertown.

“We’re delighted to extend our relationship with Eon and to be working with them to deliver their pioneering ectogrid in the UK for the first time.”

The use of Eon’s ectogrid is a first for the UK, but is already being used in sustainable projects across Europe, such as Medicon Village in Lund, southern Sweden.

When completed, Silvertown will be the largest space heating and cooling network in UK.