DECC Launches Heat Networks Consultation

On 29 June 2016, just weeks before its integration into the Department of Business, Energy and Industry (BEI), the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) launched a consultation on the design and management of the Heat Network Infrastructure Project.

The focus of the consultation is how the much-trumpeted £320 million of support for heat networks that was announced in the Government's last Spending Review should be spent over the course of the next five years.

Here, Gowling WLG's energy experts summarise the key provisions of DECC's consultation.

Background

While we have several large heat networks in city centres across the UK, and many smaller-scale heat networks in housing developments (predominantly in relatively new apartment blocks), we are still lagging behind our European neighbours. For example, in Denmark 60% of the population is connected to a heat network (in Copenhagen this reaches over 90%), while in the UK, just 2% of heat is supplied