海角视频

A collaborative approach which could see millions of terraced homes getting 鈥榮mart鈥� together to tackle climate change, has secured the prestigious Utility Week 鈥業nnovation Award鈥�.

Net Zero Terrace is an initiative between design, consulting engineering and advisory practice 海角视频, Electricity North West, Centre for Energy Equality, and RV Energy.

The initiative secured funding under Ofgem鈥檚 Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) to help deliver a UK-specific solution that could be used to decarbonise up to eight million terraced homes. 海角视频 is also supporting the non-technical solution elements聽under the Net Zero Terrace Streets Pathfinders Places Phase 2 – Demonstrator project. This grant from UKRI is being used to address the non-technical barriers to creating a commercial, standardised, replicable, and scalable model for ‘energy communities’ across the UK.

Under UK government plans to ban gas boilers, these residents faced being left 鈥榮tranded鈥� and forced to switch to electric boilers, thereby increasing not only their bills significantly, but also the demand on the electricity network.

Phil Proctor, Technical Director at 海角视频 explained: 鈥淢any terraced houses can be incredibly challenging to decarbonise due to both fabric and space constraints. Replacing a gas boiler with an electric boiler sounds like a simple fix, but in reality, this means not only a significant additional demand for electricity on the local network, but based on efficiencies they are four times more expensive to run that ground source heat pump, pushing bills up.

鈥淏y looking at how we can use a smart energy approach 鈥� we鈥檝e developed a flexible, community-led solution that combines an ambient loop system for heat pumps with community energy and smart energy management via a virtual microgrid 鈥� meaning we can  decarbonise whole communities. The solution unlocks stranded communities in terraced streets, yet can be applied anywhere.  This has never been achieved before in the UK.鈥�

The project started with funding from the Community Renewable Fund, which commissioned an initial study on decarbonising an area in Rossendale, Lancashire.

The feasibility assessment identified several scenarios and solutions, including the ambient loop approach for heat pumps. An ambient loop is a type of heat network that uses water pumped around at lower temperatures to provide heating and cooling instead of traditional high temperature community heating models. These are being considered to enhance district heat networks as an efficient and sustainable solution.

To date, Net zero terraced streets has received funding through two stages of the Strategic Innovation Fund, which helped in developing the smart energy solution further.

Proctor added: 鈥淲e are focussed on introducing four modes of flexibility into the smart system: optimising bills, voltage management, thermal load, and national balancing. These modes are important not just in in increasing the penetration of renewable energy and managing thermal network constraints.鈥�

• Optimising Bills: The first mode focuses on optimising bills by using low-cost community energy as the primary source, reducing overall energy costs for residents.
• Voltage Management: The second mode addresses voltage management, aiming to increase solar energy integration into the network by overcoming voltage issues in the area.
• Thermal Load: The third mode involves managing thermal load to increase the system’s capacity to handle more heat pumps and other thermal loads.
• National Balancing: The fourth mode, national balancing, leverages price signals and generation timing to optimise energy use, similar to experiments run by Octopus Energy with the National Grid.

To ensure that the solution can be effective in multiple environments, 海角视频 has been working alongside a team in Bridgend from the previous Heat Pump Ready project to cross-check the model in a different territory with similar and different characteristics.

The team is currently working on maturing the system further. This will see the creation of a test rig in 2025. The smart system components will then be introduced into homes.