A city in Yorkshire, England is on track to reduce heating emissions by 75 to 80% across a network of large buildings that will be connected to one of the country’s biggest air-source heat pumps by the summer of 2027.
“Bradford Energy Network is delivering rapid decarbonization of heat in the city of Bradford—reducing connected customers’ heating emissions from the first day of connection, with an initial focus on large-scale buildings,” project manager 1Energy writes in an online profile of the £75-million project, which combines private capital with a £20-million investment from the UK’s Green Heat Network Fund.
“Buildings connected to the Bradford Energy network will have their gas boilers removed, dramatically improving local air quality by avoiding localized combustion of fossil fuels.”
The project will deliver enough low-carbon heat to supply the equivalent of about 10,000 homes, 1Energy says.
The company announced in August that the local Combined Court Centre and Magistrates Court “will become two of the first court buildings in England to be heated by renewable energy” after signing on to the new network. The courts are one of three anchor customers for the project, along with the University of Bradford and Bradford College, Smart Cities World reports.
The project could be a “blueprint” for cities and towns across the country looking to rapidly decarbonize their heating supplies, the news story states. “1Energy has ambitions to deploy £1 billion within the next eight years into building new city-wide, low-carbon heat networks across the UK, with its model providing the lowest-cost, simplest, and fastest route to decarbonizing heat at scale and a long-term foundation for healthier, greener cities.”
“We cannot reach net zero without decarbonizing heat,” said 1Energy CEO Andrew Wettern. “The project is already delivering significant social value and wider benefits to the city—creating new jobs and skills, utilizing the local supply chain, and creating a more favourable environment for inward investment into Bradford.”
