In his opening address to the heat suppliers’ ‘Cost, Carbon, Compliance’ forum in London, Richard said: “A relentless focus on efficiency is crucial to driving better carbon and cost performance for UK heat networks.
“This is essential to delivering on sustainability targets in the journey to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, while also providing good value to residents.
“Housing is a major greenhouse gas contributor, with 28 million homes accounting for 15% of the UK’s annual carbon emissions”, he explained. “Heat networks are seen as a ‘no regret option’ in the government’s decarbonisation strategy.
“That’s because they can operate more efficiently than individual domestic boilers by providing heating and hot water from a central flexible fuel source.
“Better efficiency, better technology and better customer service are the three key challenges that must be tackled to deliver cost and carbon saving benefits to residents,” he said.
“This is also essential to supporting the government’s heat network expansion target to provide 18% of domestic heat from communal heat schemes by 2050 – a significant increase on the current 3%.”
The three challenges highlighted by Richard can be defined as follows:
Richard concluded: “Heat suppliers need to re-focus their efforts to develop and retrofit the next tier of low and zero carbon heat networks and strengthen delivery of low cost, efficient heating to homes. This will also meet regulatory requirements and contribute to the government’s net zero target.
“Above all, this will ensure heat networks achieve consistently high standards, deliver sustainability benefits and fully meet customers’ needs.”
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