COHEAT, a Cambridge-based energy technology company specialising in community scale heat networks, is working with Trident Social Investment Group to deliver what they describe as, ‘the world’s first truly integrated heat network’ for a social housing development in the West Midlands.
COHEAT claims that heating costs could be reduced by as much as 50% for residents and social landlords with its advanced 5G heat networks.
COHEAT’s distributed control systems deliver significant improvements in the efficiency and capacity of heat networks. Combining its advanced controls with standard insulated pipes, heat pumps, and boilers creates an advanced 5G heat network.
Designed for groups of 20 or more properties, COHEAT’s 5G heat networks are an economic replacement for costly and unreliable individual heating and hot water systems.
James Verrill, managing director of COHEAT said: “Having worked through the feasibility study, we’re now in a position to pilot the technology by upgrading a new network which will become fully operational in a couple of months. The development of this technology supports the Government’s aims to deliver future-proof, affordable, low-carbon community heat for both landlords and tenants.”
Marko Cosic, technical director of COHEAT added: “While there are competing technologies providing smarter heating controls for individual homes, they make no attempt to integrate these with heat networks as closely as COHEAT does.
“This level of integration allows us to use advanced algorithms for thermal storage and load management; reducing the cost of heat networks whilst improving the user experience and energy efficiency.”
He continued: “As far as we’re aware, this is a world first for heat networks. Whilst conventional networks might need 500 homes to be economically viable, our 5G technology allows smaller housing developments to benefit from community heating schemes.
“Social landlords and developers will have access to an advanced, cost effective heating system that scales down to the smallest of developments.”
Tony Clark, director of Housing at Trident Social Investment Group said: “We’re bringing COHEAT’s cutting edge heating technology to our residents. Affordable warmth with individual temperature control in every room, along with a reliable and constant supply of hot water is exactly the kind of service we wish to provide for all of our residents; it’s what we want in our homes.
“To help further alleviate fuel poverty, this 5G heat network will allow us to customise the look, function, and language of heating controls to suit each resident and provide real-time feedback on energy consumption. This will allow our residents to better manage their comfort levels and energy bills.
“On a very practical level our maintenance team looks forward to the heating equipment being located centrally so that it can be maintained without disturbing residents. In addition, should internal maintenance problems arise, such as water leaks or damp, the system immediately alerts our staff so that we can respond quickly.”
The new heat network will go live in August. COHEAT will present interim results in late 2015, with a full independent evaluation of the 5G technology at the end of the heating season in Spring 2016.
DECC competition winners
In October 2015, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) launched a £7m competition, challenging industry to develop and demonstrate innovative new technologies to reduce the cost and improve the performance of heat networks. The aim of the competition is to promote the wider deployment of low carbon heating networks.
Having successfully progressed through phase 1 (feasibility study), COHEAT was recently announced as one of nine winners of phase 2 (demonstration and monitoring) funding by Lord Bourne, the newly appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Department of Energy and Climate Change, at an event held by The Town and Country Planning Association.
Speaking at the event, Lord Bourne commented: “One development that I am particularly interested in is the increasing use of district heating, or heat networks, at a community, local and indeed town-sized scale.
A heat network has many advantages which our current individual heating systems cannot tap into. It’s more efficient to provide heat to multiple buildings than to generate it separately in each building, where the heat source – or the mixture of sources – can be lower carbon and can exploit large scale heating sources.
“But to really exploit the benefits of heat networks, we need to drive innovation in the sector to improve system efficiency and to integrate a wide range of low carbon heat sources. So I am delighted there were nine winners from phase 2 of the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s heat networks demonstration programme.”
