Introduction

District heating supplies to two large housing estates in Manchester, Alexandra Park and Longsight.

Objectives and target audience

The main objective of the scheme is to supply affordable and efficient heat and power to over 1’600 dwellings in Alexandra Park and Longsight.
The benefits of the scheme are threefold: Environmental, economic and social.
1)    Environmental – Community heating delivers significant carbon reduction benefits compared to conventional solutions for the provision of space heating, hot water and electricity. Once established, CHP schemes are fuel flexible and also able to benefit from low or zero carbon emerging technologies.
2)    Economic – Community heating is most likely to be an economically viable option if there is a high heat demand density, a diversity of building types with different and complimentary heat demand profiles, and the opportunity to integrate other energy services, such as power generation.
3)    Social – Social benefits include reduced energy bills for residents that may be on benefits or within fuel poverty. Providing affordable warmth and reducing the potential of cold- and condensation-related illness.

Financial Resources and Partners involved

The scheme is operated by Utillicom on a fully managed service basis from boiler houses to heating/HWS systems in dwellings, including longer-term replacement. This is an existing scheme, although upgrades valued at over £1 million are taking place.

Process

A distribution network of flow and return pipes transfers the heat from the energy centre to the individual buildings or dwellings that are connected to the system. In the case of this scheme, over 26 million kWh of heating energy are supplied per annum. The pre-insulated pipes incorporate automatic leak detection, and the manufacturer is in accordance with European standards and procedures.
From the building/dwelling owners’ perspective there is no difference in the type of controls available. For example, programmers set daily and weekly heating and hot water requirements, and radiators have thermostatic control valves installed.
17 MW of energy is produced from gas fired boiler plants in two boiler houses, with 1 MW of biomass energy from a single boiler to be installed in mid-2008.

Results

There are not currently any results to analysis from the project.

Critical Success Factors / Challenges

When considering the implementation of community heating schemes, the ‘energy linking of buildings’ should be considered. This can further increase environmental, economic and social benefits with more buildings increasing thermal and electrical demands at different times of the day. It is advantageous if community heating systems can be established to supply a range of domestic and non-domestic customers. However, this is not the case here.