More homes and businesses in England and Wales could be heated by low carbon technologies with a substantial grant from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
DECC will provide £9.4million for developers and authorities across the UK in a drive to create efficient heat for homes and cut carbon emissions.
£7million of the sum is to be put toward a drive offering businesses in the UK develop new technologies like recovering industrial heat or energy from waste. Companies will be given the chance to compete for contracts to test and develop pre-commercial technology.
The remaining £2.4million will be offered to 32 local authorities across England and Wales in a drive to establish ‘district heating’ that will enable homes and business to to share heat through hot water pipes.
Energy Secretary Ed Davey said: “Improving the way we heat our buildings and helping local authorities fund innovative and more efficient ways of supplying lower carbon heat will also reduce our dependency on costly, imported gas.”
There are roughly 2,000 heat networks in the UK that supply heat to 210,000 properties with a further 150 schemes under development.
DECC have estimated that 15% of UK heat demand could be cost-effectively met by heat networks by 2030 and more than 40% by 2050.
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