CHP is a recognised way of substantially decreasing CO2 emissions. In order to contribute the goal of 20% cut in CO2 emissions, the Birmingham City Council decided to install their first Combined Heat and Power (CHP) scheme to provide heat and energy for several public buildings.
The whole scheme has included the creation of an ESCo (Energy Services Company) called Birmingham District Energy Company, run by Utilicom Ltd who financed all capital works, designed and operates the CHP plant, supplying energy services to customers at discounted rates.
When phase 1 of the scheme is completed it is estimated that some 4000 tonnes of CO2 emissions will be saved. Financially, the building owners are able to save some 5% per year on their energy supply costs, on a whole-life cost basis.

Woking’s Pool in the Park installation is believed to be the UK’s only commercially operational fuel cell CHP system. Launched on 16 June 2003, it provides power and heat all year round, with excess heat used in the summer in heat-fired absorption chillers to provide comfort cooling and dehumidification for the pool and leisure centre. A fuel cell is similar to a battery except that the fuel is continuously fed into the system and in return produces electricity and heat by an electro-chemical process. Pure water is also produced during the process. The cell contains an anode and a cathode insulated by an electrolyte between them. Hydrogen is then supplied to the anode while oxygen is supplied to the cathode. With the aid of catalysts, a electrochemical reaction occurs regenerating the water producing electricity and heat. Fuels cell technology is ‘clean’ although natural gas is the fuel as the efficiency is high resulting in low carbon dioxide emissions.

Birmingham city council was looking for alternative electric heating for some of its multi-storey homes and investigated a proposal to heat three 13-storey blocks of flats in the Stechford area of the City from a new heating plant adjacent to the adjacent leisure centre.
The blocks were built in 1964 containing 150 one and two bedroom homes, the blocks were of concrete wall-frame construction with brick and block infill, and metal frame single glazing. Each flat had electric under floor heating to the hall and lounge of each home, together with a 2 kW electric fire in the lounge. This combination mean’t that homes were impossible to heat and residents suffered from very low winter temperatures despite paying high heating bills. The council then decided to refurbish both buildings and heating systems, therefore replacing electric heating in the flats with radiator based systems fed from a community heating system. The heating system belonging to the Stechford cascades leisure centre was also in need in repair. To tackle this it was decided that an extra plant were to be installed to serve the adjacent flats. This was in a form of CHP unit with two new boilers in a boiler house.

This case study expresses how Aberdeen City Council have developed a methodology to combined heat and power district heating for already existing property upgrades and how the council have established a private not-for-profit company to manage these CHP schemes. Previous upgrades have included the energy efficiency the housing belonging to the council through developments in heating systems, building fabric and levels of insulation. These initiatives have helped keep to the council’s current objectives of affordability, sustainability, safety and carbon dioxide emission reduction. Within Aberdeen, the housing collection that appeared to have to be the most troublesome with regards to energy efficiency were the council’s multi-storey blocks of flats. Options such as cavity wall insulation and individual gas heating to implement in the multi-storey flats were unwilling by the council therefore leaving the only option available being combined heat and power. The name of the not-for-profit company that was established by the council to manage the CHP scheme was Aberdeen Heat and Power Ltd. This was established in 2003. The board of the AH&P consists of council and tenant representatives, and up to six independent directors with varied and relevant expertise.

A large-scale combined heating and power (CHP) scheme across two large housing estates in Manchester serving over 1’600 homes. The scheme provides heat from a number of central sources via a network of heat mains.