The 4,000 new homes, offices, shops and other facilities at the Battersea Power Station development could be sustainably heated by a water source heat pump, energy secretary Ed Davey announced on a site visit earlier this week.
Energy company SSE has been appointed to carry out a full heat pump feasibility study that could also utilise engineering infrastructure built 80 years ago to connect the power station to the Thames when it was generating power.
Philip Gullett, chief operating officer at Battersea Power Station, said: “We are looking at a range of options to deliver the energy required for the homes, shops, restaurants and leisure facilities being created here at Battersea Power Station.
“Being located on the banks of the River Thames in central London we are ideally placed to investigate what role water source technology may play in supplying our energy needs and we are delighted that SSE will be undertaking a feasibility study to establish the options available to us.”
Davey’s visit to the site was to publicise the launch of an interactive map that identifies 4,000 stretches of water – rivers, estuaries, canals and coastal sites – that could be used to supply sustainable power to nearby developments.
Phillip Gullett (right) shows Battersea plans to Ed Davey last year (Flickr)
The map includes details of water conditions, such as temperature and flow rates, as well as the potential heat capacity of each waterway and the levels of heat demand across England – eliminating the cost and time it would take developers to conduct their own exploratory studies.
The Department for Energy and Climate Change has produced the map as it believes that at least one million homes and businesses across England could be tapping into clean renewable heat hidden in our waterways.
Water source heat pumps operate by taking heat from the water and feeding it into local heat networks or single buildings.
DECC says that a water source heat pump could help eliminate the need for gas-fired domestic heating and a typical household could slash its carbon footprint by up to 50%.
Launching the new map, Davey said: “We need to make the most of the vast amount of clean, renewable heat that lays dormant and unused in our rivers, lakes and seas.
“Doing this will help contribute to an energy mix that maximises clean, reliable home-grown resources rather than relying on foreign fossil fuels. It also provides a system that bolsters growth in our local economies, protects the natural environment, and creates resilient communities that are capable of producing sustainable power systems.
“This is exactly why we’re giving local people, developers and councils the keys they need to unlock the enormous potential of our waterways.”
Water Source Heat Pumps use a lot of electricity to operate a system that only provides low temperature heating. This electricity, which comes from the grid, is only circa 25% efficient when generation & transmission losses are taken into account This equates to each Kilowatt of electricity used in a heat pump being created by using four Kilowatts of energy to produce it…how can that be assisting the reduction of carbon use. Surely it would be better to use the flow of the Thames to generate electricity with turbines set into the flow, using the already existing infrastructure at Battersea Power Station
Check with the Royal Festival Hall – they installed a heat pump when it was first built – 1951