£9.4m boost for low carbon heating

Almost £2.4 million of funding is on offer to 32 local authorities across England and Wales to support the development of heat network projects, through the Government’s Heat Networks Delivery Unit.

Alongside this, a £7 million scheme has been launched offering firms the opportunity to compete for funding to develop new heat networks technologies such as recovering industrial heat, or energy from waste.

The aim is to drive forward innovation by creating new technologies that work more efficiently, cut carbon emissions and cost less.

Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Ed Davey, comments: “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 currently around 2,000 heat networks in the UK supplying 210,000 dwellings and 1,700 commercial and public buildings. A further 150 schemes are known to be under development by local authorities across the country.