The UK’s first geothermal heat network is one of seven innovative projects to have won a share of £91m of government funding.
The second round of projects that will benefit from the Green Heat Network Fund, (GHNF) were announced by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero on 12 May. They include Langarth Deep Geothermal Heat Network, which will involve drilling to a depth of 5,275m to extract heat from hot granite rocks beneath the United Downs Industrial Park, near Redruth in Cornwall. It will provide low-cost heating for around 3,800 homes.
The GHNF is a £288m scheme that opened in March 2022 and is anticipated to run until 2025. It replaced the Heat Networks Investment Project and only funds projects with a low-carbon heat source.
Other schemes to win funding include a heat network in East London, which was awarded £1.76m and will heat two new developments in and around the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, serving 500 new homes and 250 non-domestic premises.
East Riding of Yorkshire Council has won £12m to create the new Goole District Energy Network, which will use waste heat from a manufacturing plant to power local homes and businesses, cutting the town’s carbon emissions by 322,000 tonnes over 40 years.
The biggest award was £25m to build a new Rotherham Energy Network to deliver heating and hot water to homes and businesses in the south Yorkshire town centre. The remaining awards were for low carbon heat networks in Bradford city centre and Huddersfield, and at the University of Reading.
