LOW CARBON ENERGY
The vital part that regional heat networks can play
In advance of the University & Healthcare Estates and Innovation (UHEI) Conference and Exhibition in Dublin on 16 and 17 May this year, Alison Ryan, deputy Healthcare lead at Mott MacDonald, Chris Kelly, an associate director, Estates Compliance and Risk, at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (LTHT), and Mike Cooke, MD, North & Scotland, at Vital Energi Utilities, look at the role of regional heat networks in addressing some of the challenges ahead with respect to achieving Net Zero Carbon in the healthcare and education sectors.
Leeds PIPES is an award-winning district heating scheme delivered in partnership by Leeds City Council and Vital Energi to provide affordable, reliable, and low carbon heat and hot water. The original intent was to develop a city-wide heat network to supply heat created as a by-product from burning Leeds’ non-recyclable waste at the Recycling and Energy Recovery Facility (RERF) in Cross Green (see Figure 1), to numerous council homes, public sector buildings (including hospitals and universities), businesses, and new developments around Leeds City Centre. A District Heating Network (DHN) is a
system of underground pipes that delivers heat and hot water to buildings connected to the network. The primary heating is steam generated as part of the waste recycling process, and the secondary ‘network’ consists of buried heating flow and return pipework that serves the various buildings. District Heating (or Heat Networks as they are also known) systems provide low carbon heat which would otherwise go to waste. There are currently networks operating in Sheffield, Nottingham, Manchester, London, Glasgow, and others parts of the UK.
Figure 1: The Recycling and Energy Recovery Factory (RERF) in Leeds. Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust sends 100% of its general and offensive waste to the RERF, which in turn provides low carbon heat to St James’s University Hospital.
The UK Government is investing
over half a billion pounds in funds and programmes, working in conjunction with industry and local authorities, to develop new heat networks and improve existing ones through the Heat Network Transformation Programme (HNTP).
Recovering recyclable materials The Recycling and Energy Recovery Factory in Leeds, managed by Veolia,
recovers recyclable materials and generates energy from the city’s black bin waste. The facility has a living wall, enhancing the local biodiversity, and harvesting rainwater for use on site. The scheme helps reduce Leeds’ carbon
footprint, and saves the council over £7 m each year, compared with landfill. As shown in Figure 2, the heat network runs from the Cross Green RERF Energy Centre to Saxton Gardens Energy Centre, and across Leeds City Centre. Major connections include government buildings, universities, schools, healthcare buildings, commercial buildings, and almost 2,000 council homes, as shown in Table 1.
Figure 2: The Leeds PIPES Heat Network routes.
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has taken steps towards reducing gas consumption at its St James’s University Hospital site by identifying buildings to be connected to the newly developed internal low-carbon network, supplied by CHP waste heat, heat pumps, and a bulk connection to the Leeds PIPES district heat network (all funded by grants awarded by the Government’s Public Sector Decarbonisation Schemes 1 and 3A). The Leeds PIPES network distribution runs past the St. James’s University Hospital site boundary, and the
May 2023 Health Estate Journal 37
Courtesy Leeds Pipes.
https://www.leeds-pipes.co.uk/
Courtesy
Leeds.Gov.UK:
https://www.leeds.gov.uk/residents/ bins-and-recycling/your-bins/future-of-leeds-waste
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