Meltdown: Using industrial waste heat for district heating networks

Heating accounts for 37% of the UK’s carbon emissions, with households heated by standard gas-fired boilers the biggest culprit.

From 2025, new-builds will be banned from installing gas boilers to help reduce emissions and will instead have to have clean technology such as heat pumps powered by electricity. The UK has made headway in reducing the grid’s carbon intensity by generating clean electricity through wind and solar sources. And when low-carbon heat pumps are connected in a district heating network they enable heat to be shared between buildings.

A study in Yorkshire explored recovering waste heat from a glass foundry’s lower-temperature cooling water collected in lagoons on site via a network of gullies. The research concluded that there is potential to decarbonise large parts of the nearby area, including existing social housing and 1,500 new-builds. 

In addition, using mine water as a means of storing and recovering heat allows seasonal thermal energy storage to act both as back-up and top-up to the heat available from the foundry.

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