The Secret Power Plants Revolutionising Zero-Carbon Heating and Cooling in Cities!

A huge proportion of London's emissions comes from burning fossil fuels to power and heat buildings. The challenge is how do we supply a city that is continuously growing and has ever-increasing energy demands with cost efficient low carbon energy.

The good news is, there are companies like E.ON that are implementing ways to tackle this problem through district heating networks. In this episode, Imogen and the team went to visit Citigen, a hidden district heating network that provides low carbon heating, power, and cooling to homes and businesses in London's Square Mile including the Barbican Centre, Museum of London and the Guildhall.

So could this be a blueprint for how cities can transition toward a greener future?
@fullychargedshow @EverythingElectricShow

00:00 Introduction
00:39 What is a District Heat Network?
01:27 Citigen
01:45 Boreholes
02:58 Thermal Store
05:09 A Window into the Past
05:41 Heat Pumps
07:54 A Labyrinth of Different Pipes
08:41 Heating and Cooling Substations
10:41 Fifth-Generation District Heating Lab
11:25 Waste Heat and the Future
12:42 The Control Room
13:25 Concluding Thoughts

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[thomasjrgensen]

Hi, I'm an Operations Engineer at a danish district heating powerplant, watching your video on my nightshift.
Our heat water battery has a size of 2500MWh. A bit bigger than 8MWh :)

[JorgeniLund]

Nice job. I'm one of the the large group in Sweden that has heating via district heating. I previously had natural gas and then moved to my own house with district heating. I can testify how convenient the energy source is and how well it works despite long periods of cold. Yes, it takes time to build infrastructure with heating pipelines in the streets. When the job is done, it only has profits.

[MJMC]

In Switzerland if anyone needs to dig up a road for some reason, they're obliged to put in appropriate infrastructure at the same time even if it's not immediately connected. Sooner or later another roadworks will happen and enable the dormant infrastructure to be connected. This type of thinking is way beyond the privatised stupidiy we have in the UK.

[mngbennett]

Such an interesting example of how modern technology can be applied to historic infrastructure. Thank you,

[baskruitnl]

Here in The Netherlands I notice that heat networks are much more expensive for the end user than decentralized heating with natural gas/electricity, easily double as much. One issue is that it's basically a monopoly. On top of that getting your house disconnected from the heat network is ludicrously expensive as well. For my next house, it will most definitely be one that's not hooked up to a heat network..

[winfriedtheis]

Thanks for this great video! I was surprised that you did not mention the Tube as a heat source! I reckon there is a lot of heat in there and anyone, who has used in the rushhour particularly in summer can testify to the cooling need…

[anguscampbell]

This sort of system is also great for rural areas but with individual units per house. By taking the warm grey water from showers, clothes washing and dishwashing and storing it in an insulated tank underground a homeowner can extract the heat from that grey water and send it back into the house for space heating, heating water and clothes drying. The same tank can also be used to store waste heat harvested from PV Panels until needed and the heat pump can be a dual system extracting heat from both the ambient air or the tank. Grey water from the tank can also be recycled and used for flushing toilets reducing the intake from wells and the output to the septic tanks thus reducing overflow which is another common problem with septic tank systems. The grey water can also be used for lawn and garden watering during times of drought or low well water The insulated tank would need an overflow into the septic system when needed.

[timogronroos]

I’m 57 and lived my whole life in appartments and houses with district heating in Helsinki area in Finland

[returner]

Thanks Imogen; great work again. Yes, DH is very well established in the Nordics and we work with a number of operators that are looking to integrate their DH networks with the wider energy ecosystem as part of a broader sector coupling effort and actively trade demand and supply on the short-term physical power markets... To say it's a no-brainer is an understatement.

[ericvetb]

I had no idea that there was that in London already!! Nice one!!

[anguscampbell]

Here where I live in Mount Pearl NL, Canada we have a much smaller and different system but with the same results. Waste heat from two twin hockey stadiums is used to heat the water in a swimming pool as well as the water for showers and it also heats the space inside a gymnasium and other buildings nearby. A small Ground to Water system provides back up when insufficient heat is available from the stadiums and rain water from the roofs and from the showers is stored and used to flush toilets. The system was expensive to install but paid back quickly over several winters.

[NckBrktt]

In UK we built power stations as far away from centres of population. This allowed them to use waste heat to keep fish warm in the rivers and keeps birds warm in winter. Another great British idea that never seemed to catch on in other countries.
District heating makes a lot of economic sense in densely built up areas. Blow the birds and fish.

[peterjol]

They have been quickly building massive new data plants all over the country and they all produce massive amounts of 'waste' heat...heat that with a bit of intelligent thought and planning could be used for district heating.

[petesplaneta]

Really great to see this. Such a hidden part of the city. Seems crazy that we are not doing this more.

[williamclark]

This "boring" heating is really exciting...😊
Great video Imogen and team.❤

[ronaldstrous]

I recently had a tour in the Mall of the Netherlands how they use aquathermy. It is basically the same as this. Our burrow (wijk) is looking if we can use the same system (only heating) for our homes (19 apartment complexes with over 1600 apartments) to replace our current gas heat pumps).

[markreed]

I love the tech and also love her energy and excitement for everything she talks about 😁

[foppo]

Netherlands also.My niece recieves the heating for her house from a district heating system.They have underfloor heating and radiators up stairs.

[ElectricCarAustralia]

Great video. Cant believe more of this type of Tech isnt being installed more widely. 👍

[James_Ryan]

Looks like E.ON need to update their website - the page linked above proudly states "Citigen has two natural gas fuelled MWM TCG 2032 V16, high efficiency CHPs. These each produce 4.3 MW electricity and 4.1 MW of heat." 😂