Competition for funding: urban heat networks

Bridgend County Borough Council has launched an SBRI competition inviting businesses to develop lower cost heating and water infrastructure in Wales.

The Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition will identify how innovation in construction and smart technology can be used to cut the capital cost of district heating and water infrastructure as well as improve overall lifetime efficiencies, in terms of resource use and infrastructure economics.

Heat networks deliver cost effective low carbon heat, in the form of hot water or steam, from the point of generation (the central heat source) often referred to as the energy centre, to the end user through a network of insulated pipes. There are many possible technologies that can provide the input to a heat network including power stations, energy from waste (EfW) facilities, industrial processes, biomass and biogas fuelled boilers and Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plants, gas-fired CHP units, fuel cells, heat pumps, geothermal sources, electric boilers and solar thermal arrays.

Also known as district heating, there are already over 14,000 Heat Networks in the UK that supply heat to hospitals, universities, tower blocks and, increasingly, to new urban mixed developments of housing, commercial and public buildings.

A total of up to £2.2M is potentially available for development contracts in this competition, which is open for applications. Bridgend County Council is holding a briefing event for potential applicants 19^th September 2019. Find out more and apply

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