Professor Tavis Potts from the School of Geosciences and the Just Transition Lab attended the launch of Heat Network Scotland at the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute.
The University of Aberdeen, via the JUST-Systems project and the Aberdeen Geothermal Pilot, is a founding member, supporting the development of this network across business, academia, policy and the 3rd sector in Scotland.
The attendees at the event covered a wide array of issues on the deployment of heat networks in the Scottish context – the policy frameworks (and major gaps), the economics and finance, the engineering and systems design approaches, the innovation around skills and the need to frame these developments in the context of a just transition that delivers for local supply chains, energy consumers and communities while decarbonising heat.
Professor Potts said: “The potential here is huge, and in the context of recent debates on energy security and the need to decarbonise heat for residential and commercial consumers, district heat networks can deliver whole system cost savings, reduce emissions from heat, improve local economies and address fuel poverty as a ‘low regrets’ option. Some things we learned today:
- There is a major role for heat networks to address the issues of curtailment in the wind sector. Estimates indicate that 9.7TWh of wind energy is curtailed due to transmission constraints over 57% of the year. Heat networks could provide an effective mechanism to use this excess energy, converting excess electricity into heat storage, and providing a cheap and reliable solution for Scottish consumers. They provide an effective balancing system via thermal storage.
- Multiple scaled local systems could directly address concerns around energy security, reliability, system economics and resilience and support skills, fuel poverty and decarbonisation strategies. As heat networks can deploy multiple heat inputs, from industrial heat pumps, ground and water sourced heat and agricultural inputs, they could have a magnifying effect on regional economies.
- Heat networks address one of the major challenges in the decarbonisation of heat – moving the locus of action from the household (e.g. via individual heat pumps) to more collective responses that share the cost and have wider positive externalities. Individual heat pumps still have an important role, particularly in new builds, but heat networks offer a solution for high density housing, existing neighbourhoods and across mixed tenures and uses.
- There is a wealth of existing practice to build off in this sector – from Aberdeen Heat and Power, Fife Council, Glasgow City Council and Shetland to name a few.
The major obstacles to expansion of heat networks are not technical but financial, vague or clashing policy commitments, planning constraints and social licence.
“We are hoping to address some of these gaps via the JUST-Systems project (with several of our case studies exploring the deployment of heat networks in Scotland and wider UK) and to continue to contribute to this exciting new development and its working groups via our expertise at the University of Aberdeen. Looking forward to see how this develops as a cornerstone of Scottish efforts to deliver a people and place based approach to climate action and a just energy transition that works for places, people and communities.”