Garden village secures UK’s largest water-source heat network

Welborne garden village secures UK’s largest water-source heat network for entire 6,000 home project

Ivan Horoshenkov, Strategy Director at Rendesco, discusses the UK’s largest water-source low carbon heating and cooling network which is being installed at Welborne, a new generation sustainable garden village in Hampshire.

The first of its kind technology initially supplies 700 new homes, commercial premises, and community buildings in the first phase of the development. As Welborne expands, it is planned that the network will supply all 15,000 residents in 6,000 new homes with heat, hot water, and cooling.

Rendesco has been commissioned by Buckland Development, the Master Developer of the new community, to deliver the first phase of the network. The network will be owned and operated by Last Mile Heat, the Heat Trust registered low-carbon heat supplier, which is an innovative joint venture between Last Mile and Rendesco. The first groundbreaking system will further bolster the garden village’s impressive sustainability credentials by ensuring that the project has a reliable and sustainable supply of clean heat and hot water, in addition to cooling technology helping to future-proof the project.

The network draws water from Portsmouth Water’s underground Hoads Hill Reservoir, making it significantly more efficient than air source heat pumps due to the more stable and higher average temperature of the reservoir. It emits 90% less CO2 emissions than a gas boiler and 50% less than air source heat pumps. It is also cheaper for customers, saving an average three-bedroom house around £160 per year compared with an air source heat pump. A unique feature of the network is its ability provide cooling in the warmer months by reversing the process and expelling heat back into the reservoir.

The network also includes an innovative energy exchange function which allows heat to be transferred between homes and other buildings. When one building is cooling, it can supply its excess heat to other buildings in the network which can then be used for central heating or hot water. As a result, the complete network has the potential to save over 272,000 tonnes of carbon in the first 25 years of operation, compared with gas boilers, which adds up to the emissions of more than 33,000 average homes.

The announcement came as housing developers adjust to the Future Homes Standard which will ban gas boilers in new build homes from 2025 and will require new build homes to be equipped with low carbon forms of electrified heat such as heat networks or heat pumps. The Government recently opened the consultation for the Future Homes Standard in December where they reaffirmed their commitment to electrified sources of heat.

Today, the network has progressed through construction and the initial dwellings have been connected, with hundreds more to follow in the coming months.

To read more about Welborne garden village visit: https://welborne.co.uk

www.rendesco.com