COHEAT 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 per cent 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 innovative 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 £7 million 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 this week 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.”
Image: COHEAT installs the first delivery of insulated pipes for its 5G heat network development in the West Midlands
Full details of the winners are available on the DECC website: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/heat-network-innovation-competition
About COHEAT
COHEAT is an energy technology company based in Cambridge specialising in heat networks for retrofit and new build housing. COHEAT’s solution is simpler, more reliable, more efficient, and more affordable than installing individual boilers in every home, and can reduce the total costs of heating by up to 50 per cent.
COHEAT use distributed controls technology to reduce the cost of heat networks whilst delivering best-in-class user experience and performance. The resulting networks can then be economic for as few as 20-250 homes, placing them within reach of many more buyers than traditional city district scale solutions.
http://www.coheat.co.uk
About Trident Social Investment Group
Trident Social Investment Group is a social business incorporating housing organisations, charities and social enterprises; building on the best of the social purpose housing associations created to tackle homelessness and neighbourhood disadvantage.
Trident Social Investment Group is made up of Trident Housing Association, Trident Charitable Housing Association, Trident Star, Trident Reach the People Charity, Dorcas Housing and Community Support Association and Community Impact.
Trident delivers services to approximately 6,000 people in 3,500 homes.
http://www.trident-ha.org.uk/
About the Department of Energy and Climate Change Heat Networks Demonstration
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) created the Heat Networks Demonstration competition to stimulate innovation that will help address cost and performance efficiency challenges related to heat networks, supporting the growth of low carbon heat networks across the country as well as providing real world evidence on reducing costs and improving energy efficiencies.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/7m-boost-to-heat-industry-innovation
About heat networks
Heat networks supply heat to a number of homes from a central energy centre through a system of insulated pipes. Heat production at this communal, rather than individual scale, is more energy efficient, delivers carbon savings, and can reduce consumer bills.
An estimated 43% of UK heat demand could be cost effectively met by heat networks by 2050. A report by the Committee on Climate Change agreed with DECC that heat networks can play an important part of the overall plan for lower carbon heating in the decades ahead. There are currently approximately 2,000 heat networks in the UK, supplying heat to 210,000 dwellings and 1,700 commercial and public buildings. A further 150 schemes are known to be under development by local authorities across the UK.
https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/increasing-the-use-of-low-carbon-technologies/supporting-pages/heat-networks
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For further information please contact:
COHEAT
Marko Cosic
Technical Director, COHEAT Ltd
+44 7774 524 114
[email protected]
Media
Marcus Edgar
+44 (0)1635 898 363
[email protected]
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