Contrasting approaches to fossil fuel
Past UK energy policy was to burn North Sea resources quickly as a source of cheap energy from the 1970s onwards. We’d taken a similar view to coal, that plentiful and cheap energy source which made Britain the leading industrial power of the nineteenth century.
During the 1970s, Scandinavians took a different view of their gas reserves – principally selling fossil energy overseas and keeping the revenue. Investing receipts by fitting their towns and cities with heat networks, heating houses with waste heat from factories, sewage works and incinerators, meant they could sell more gas and grow sovereign wealth.
Challenges and solutions
The UK has all the heat it needs to achieve the government’s ambition of 20% of domestic heat from networks by 2035, against a current level of 3%. It can be recovered easily from sources mentioned above, as well as by air source heat pumps. Pipework in streets is just another utility.
It seems strange, given our concerns about climate change, energy security and balance of trade, that in cities around the UK there are, for example, energy from waste plants with huge cooling systems releasing 70% of the energy they generate as heat to the atmosphere. Meanwhile tankers full of LNG and LPG sail into Milford Haven and elsewhere, laden with gas from the US and the Middle East, and what we pay for to keep ourselves warm in the winter is influenced by geo-politics.
Putting two and two together challenges the UK way of doing things. It is social investment and requires a co-operative approach. Returns in financial terms can be significant during periods of price spikes in fossil fuels but are not spectacular when it has to compete with cheaper gas imports. The bigger advantage is in price certainty and energy security.
Co-operation and progress
Planning takes its share of the blame for being too complex and slow. But like everything else, if there is a will there is a way. Look at Leeds, which has a Local Development Order, and a network of pipes expanding quickly. Other cities are making progress too: Bristol, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Sheffield and parts of London, all of which Savills is involved in.
The Energy Act 2023 creates a powerful basis for heat roll out in the UK. Specialist developers and municipalities are actively co-operating with businesses and communities to deliver, the pace of which is increasing.
In Copenhagen the tourist boat tour commentaries proudly point out its huge energy from waste plants as the “source of the hot water you all showered in this morning”. In Gothenburg they say the same of the water source heat pump recovering energy from the city’s effluent. It’s not difficult unless you make it so.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
