London to heat 650,000 homes with hot water carried by electric barges
Key Points
- £41 million backs a London heat network to supply 650,000 homes
- Electric barges will carry hot water 25km a day along the Thames
- A tunnel under the river will then take the water to homes and businesses
- The scheme is part of a £90 million round covering 750,000 homes
- A further £13.3 million will upgrade 76 inefficient heat networks
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has put £41 million into a London heat network that will ship hot water down the Thames.
The project will supply 650,000 homes with low-carbon heat and could benefit more than a million residents, the department said on Wednesday (23 September).
Electric barges will initially carry hot water 25km a day along the River Thames. The water will then travel through a purpose-built tunnel under the river to homes and businesses along the route.
The department said the scheme is the first of its kind in the UK. Cities including Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Vienna and Berlin have run similar systems for decades.
The project still needs planning consent before work can begin. The department said it could unlock around £5 billion of investment in London’s local heat networks and support skilled jobs in tunnelling, engineering and river transport.
“Clean power and clean heat benefits communities across our country. Building the infrastructure to deliver it is reindustrialising the UK and rolling out cutting-edge energy technology so families can benefit from lower bills, good jobs and energy security,” said Martin McCluskey, Minister for Local Energy and Jobs.
Heat networks pipe hot water from one central source to multiple buildings. That source can include excess heat from a data centre or a factory, according to the department.
The government said the Thames scheme will make the capital less reliant on gas.
£90 million across England and Wales
The Thames project forms part of a wider £90 million funding round that will bring cheaper, cleaner heating to more than 750,000 homes. The government said the projects will create more than 2,000 jobs in total.
Other new and extended networks receiving funding include:
- Bexley and Greenwich, London – £11.5 million towards what could become the UK’s largest heat network, serving up to 100,000 homes once complete
- Marble Arch, London – £11.4 million for a system around Oxford Street that draws heat from the
- London Chalk Aquifer using water-source heat pumps, creating 200 jobs
- Bradford – £9.7 million to extend the city’s heat network to 255 homes, a hospital and seven schools and colleges
- Solihull – £3.9 million to extend the town’s existing network beyond council buildings, a leisure centre, a theatre and a college
The government has also committed £13.3 million to upgrade 76 inefficient heat networks in England and Wales. The work includes replacing leaky pipes, insulating pipework and fitting new interface units that give residents more control over their heating.
The largest upgrade award, £5.5 million, will go to Prospect House in Bermondsey and the Packington Estate in Islington, which together serve 1,143 residents.
Manchester will receive £1 million for Cornwall Court in Gorton and Cundiff Court in Levenshulme, while £374,900 will go to Eschol Court in Newport and Victoria Court in Abergavenny.
Residents at Southern Housing Group’s Vega Building in Brighton now save £438 a year on heating and hot water after a similar upgrade.
Their heat network ran at 35% efficiency until a £200,000 grant paid for new pipework insulation, radiator valves and heat interface units in 2024, which halved the building’s gas use.
“To hit our climate goals, we must be just as focused on fixing inefficient legacy systems as we are on building the smart networks of the future,” said Meghan Newman, policy manager at ADE: Heat Networks.
