Energy minister puts the heat on

London – Measures to reduce the UK heat-related energy requirements and the emissions generated were the focus of a keynote speech by UK energy minister Edward Davey in a speech to the Heat Conference 2012, organised by the Energy Institute and the Combined Heat & Power Association.

Almost half of the final energy consumed in the UK is used to provide heat: around three quarters of this is for heating buildings; the rest is in manufacturing processes. Most heat currently comes from burning natural gas, and generating heat causes around a third of UK greenhouse gas emissions.

“We cannot meet our emissions reduction targets, or indeed our renewables targets, without tackling heat,” said Davey, speaking just ahead of the announcement of the Energy Bill, which aims to reform to the UK power sector by attracting around £110 billion of investment in new infrastructure.

“To meet our long-term climate goals, carbon emissions from buildings must eventually be near zero, and emissions from industry will need to be around a third of what they are now,” the minister added.

District heating represents one way to achieve these goals, Davey noting that up to half of the heat demand in England is in areas with high enough heat density to make heat networks feasible.

The UK government is, therefore, to provide around £1 million to four cities – Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, and Sheffield – to undertake feasibility studies on new district heating projects.

The scheme is to be extended to other cities, with the government also working with the Green Investment Bank to ensure that the projects can be taken to the next stage in the process.

To highlight the potential significance, Davey cited how the Greater London Authority already supported 25 heat network projects. These, he said, have the capacity to leverage over £230 million of investment.

The energy minister went on to highlight the capacity of combined heat and power (CHP) systems to deliver significant energy and emissions savings. These systems, he said, provide around 7% of the electricity currently on the grid.

While decarbonisation of the grid will eventually cancel out natural gas-fired CHP, but Davey said he was still looking for ways to bring forward new capacity for as long it continued to deliver lifetime CO2 savings.

“I am as keen as you are to bring clarity to policy in this area,” he said. “That is why I have commissioned detailed costing and modelling work to understand the extent of the time window for fossil fuelled CHP, and to consider what would give the most benefit for least cost. This work will inform the March heat policy proposals.”

Indeed, the government’s ‘energy efficiency strategy’ has identified CHP as a technology that can further contribute to a more energy efficient society at both the micro and the macro level.

The strategy. said Davey, “confirms the importance of CHP as an industrial energy efficiency measure, and indicates that natural-gas-fired CHP projects will be eligible for consideration for Green Investment Bank funding as a non-domestic energy efficiency measure.”

“Renewable CHP of course has a longer-term future. We currently give CHP an up-lift through the Renewable Obligation mechanism, and our consultation on expanding the non-domestic RHI includes a CHP-specific tariff.”

With regard to industrial heat, Davey said the government recognised that the demands for heat vary a great deal between different industries and that the potential for emissions reductions and efficiency savings was highly sector-specific.

To identify opportunities on a sector-by-sector basis, Davey announced that: “In the new year, therefore, we will be working with industry and academics to understand and articulate routes to decarbonise each of the key industry sectors. We need you to engage with us if we are going to make this credible.”