| Abstract |
This project seeks to identify the innovative solutions needed to deliver major reductions in the capital cost of heat network infrastructure and accelerate its deployment. Examining the technical, process and system developments needed to deliver a step change reduction in the capital costs, along with cost estimates and time frames for undertaking these developments. District heat networks supply heat to homes and businesses through pipes carrying hot water. They have great potential to deliver CO2 emissions reductions and cost benefits through the use of low carbon heat, waste heat from power stations, industry and other sources, combined heat and power, and large-scale heat pump deployment.
In Stage 1 of the project, work comprised assessment and synthesis of the current baseline practice and costs in the UK and overseas, and relevant technologies and practicesfrom other industries which could potentially be used in future, from which key challenge areas were identified for targeting of cost reduction solutions during Stage 2 of the project.
This report describes the identification and development of solutions in each of these challenge areas, the assessment of the key solutions against a range of criteria, and the selection of certain solutions to have route maps developed during Stage 3.
The five prioritised Challenges which have focussed activity in Stage 2 are as follows:- Challenge 1 -System Design Architecture
- Challenge 2 -Civil Engineering CAPEX
- Challenge 3 -Pipes and Connections CAPEX
- Challenge 4 -Internal Connections CAPEX
- Challenge 5 -New Network Income
This report presents the methodology and outputs of Stage 2 of the project summarising:- The approach to solution development
- Solutions identified which address the challenges above
- The evaluation of solutions against the key criterion of DHN cost saving and the supporting qualitative and quantitative criteria
- The interaction of alternative solutions and how they can be applied to maximise the system level CAPEX saving
- The solutions selected for route mapping in Stage 3 and the selection rationale
Readers may find it useful to study the Summary Report, which summarises the entire project, prior to studying the detailed engineering reports |
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