Lord Callanan, Minister for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance, visited the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and Stratford City District Energy Scheme on Thursday 2nd November, hosted by Equans and the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC).
The heat network had been awarded £1.76 million of support from the Green Heat Network Fund (GHNF) earlier this year, to support the installation of a low carbon heat pump at the Stratford City Energy Centre and the expansion of the network.
Lord Callanan was granted special access to visit the new heat pump and the nearby King’s Yard Energy Centre. The heat network is currently serving over 5,000 domestic residents and 39 commercial buildings, including the London Stadium and Westfield Shopping Centre with a pipeline of new connections currently under development.
The heat pump has now been installed at the energy centre and is ready to provide sustainable heating services to additional heat loads being added to the network. These connections to new buildings will benefit from the low carbon emissions derived from the heat pump – rather than the average emissions associated with the entire network – in an approach to meeting enhanced low carbon requirements called “sleeving”.
The day also provided the opportunity for the Minister to get a first-hand look at plans for the future of the heat network, including an extension to two new sites in Pudding Mill Lane, supported by the new low carbon heat source. He was able to meet the teams working on the network, including East London Energy representatives from LLDC and those helping to deliver the GHNF at Triple Point Heat Networks Investment Management.
We were delighted to join the Minister and the team at East London Energy to see the impact the GHNF award has had on the local area and how the new heat pump will enable further growth of the network.
Dr Andrew Cripps, Technical Director at Triple Point, who attended the visit, reflected:
It was exciting to see the progress being made to achieve decarbonisation for this major urban heat network. Reducing emissions from the existing building stock is one of the largest challenges in the path to Net Zero, and evolving the solutions used in legacy heat networks is one of the best ways to address it. The project is also an early example of the use of sleeving of low carbon heat, that can help with the economic challenge of decarbonising existing heat networks.
James Graham, Divisional CEO for Equans UK & Ireland, said:
The funding from the Green Heat Network Fund has allowed us to invest in delivering low carbon heat from 2023 and unlock further growth of the network. Existing district heat networks will play an instrumental role in the energy transition and it’s fantastic that the government has recognised this and reinforced our decarbonisation efforts at ELE by supporting with the funds for the heat pump, the first step on moving away from fossil fuels and delivering our net zero by 2035 commitment.
Notes to editors
View our latest funding announcement here: Affordable low-carbon heating for thousands of homes unlocked by GHNF Funding – GHNF (tp-heatnetworks.org)
