Guidance provides welcome clarity for capital’s growing district heating development

The CHPA, the independent association that represents district heating in the UK, welcomed the publication today by the London Mayor of guidance to support the delivery of a new district heating schemes in the capital.

The District Heating Manual for London is aimed at developers, network designers, planners and planning authorities. It promotes a consistent framework for development of the energy infrastructure that will underpin the capital’s decentralised energy plans.

Ian Manders, Head of the CHPA’s District Heating & Cooling Group welcomed today’s announcement:

‘District heating has a bright future as part of the transformation of our energy supply. The Mayor’s guidance will ensure that the major developments in London will have reliable and affordable low carbon heating for their residents and businesses. The guidance will also help the future linking of these pioneering projects to provide city-wide heat networks that will be heating and cooling much of Central London by the 2040s.’

‘Customer confidence is critical to the acceptance of this new approach to heating our cities, and the guidance mentions the work CHPA is doing to develop a Domestic Consumer Protection Scheme with a model charter.’

For further information or to request an interview, please contact:
 
Ian Manders
Deputy Director & Head of Development, CHPA
T 020 3031 8740
M 07946 612508
E ian.manders@chpa.co.uk
 

Notes to editors:

About Mayor of London’s ´District Heating Manual for London´
The District Heating Manual, the first of its kind in the UK, is designed to be a ´live´ document that will be updated and feedback is encouraged in time for the next revision to be published this summer. The ´District Heating Manual for London´ provides practical guidance for developers, network designers and planners with the aim of creating a consistent framework for delivering efficient, interconnecting, district heating networks. It is also designed to help guide local planning authorities. The document, developed in collaboration with Arup, supports a range of initiatives provided by City Hall to promote the Mayor´s target to achieve 25 per cent of London’s energy supply from decentralised energy sources by 2025.

Section 1.3 Scope of the District Heating Manual states: The DH Manual covers the following aspects of developing a DH network;
• The design principles and technical concepts for the physical infrastructure focusing on interfaces between heat production plants and network, network and consumer installations;
• Guidance on the relevant planning policy and typical requirements of local planning authorities. The final section of the DH Manual considers opportunities to deliver more efficient, more viable DH systems through future technical, commercial and policy innovations. This section is intended to provide insight to the future role of district heating networks and to demonstrate the technology’s flexibility. The DH Manual specifically excludes any detailed guidance of heat supply technologies as there are many options and the appropriate heat source or sources for any network will vary by developer and project.
• Guidance on the build up of tariff structures and associated charges that can reasonably be incorporated as part of a project’s revenue streams; and
• Guidance on contract structures and management to help inform developers and project sponsors of appropriate options and the key issues to be considered when establishing delivery vehicles and determining procurement strategies;
• It is anticipated that heat supply will be from low cost heat sources including waste heat, low grade heat from CHP, gas fired CHP, and/or heat pumps. These technologies will usually be supported by peak/back-up boilers firing gas in order to minimise investment cost and provide necessary resilience to the energy centre heat supply. 
Section 6.6 on page 55 of the manual states
The agreed standards for customer services can be attached to the supply agreement or can form a separate contractual commitment to the project sponsor (see SLA discussion in Section 6.2.1). Other, more aspirational standards of performance, behaviour of ESCo staff and treatment of customers, tend to take the form of a Customer Charter, although the two types of document can overlap to an extent. A template customer charter is being developed by the CHPA and expected to be available in Autumn 2013. Where a new network operator is being procured, this template could be used as a benchmark to test bidders’ proposed charters.

Overview available at: http://www.londonheatmap.org.uk/Content/Manual.aspx

Manual available for download:

 www.londonheatmap.org.uk/Content/uploaded/documents/DH_Manual_for_London_Feb_2013.pdf

About CHP
Combined heat and power (CHP), integrates the production of usable heat and power (electricity), in one single, highly efficient process. Delivering a minimum of 10% energy savings, it makes the very best use of renewable and fossil fuels. This efficiency means less stress on precious fuel resources and lower carbon emissions. CHP works by recovering heat from the power generation process and putting it to work in industry, buildings and homes, often delivering significant cost and CO2 savings. CHP currently provides 7% of UK electricity and in 2010 provided emissions savings of 13 million tonnes of CO2. For more information about CHP, click here.

About the CHPA
The Combined Heat and Power Association (CHPA) is the leading advocate of an integrated approach to delivering energy services using combined heat and power and district heating. The Association has over 100 members active across a range of technologies and markets and is widely recognised as one of the leading industry bodies in the sustainable energy sector. For more information about the CHPA see: www.chpa.co.uk

About District Heating
A district heating scheme comprises a network of insulated pipes used to deliver heat from the point of generation, in the form of hot water or steam, to an end user. District heating networks provide the means to transport heat efficiently. Heat networks can be supplied with heat from a diverse range of sources including power stations, waste-to-energy facilities, biomass boilers and CHP plants, gas-fired CHP units, heat pumps, electric boilers and even solar thermal arrays. Click here for more information about district heating and here for case studies.

Source: CHPA