New heating solutions in the city

D2Grids is a European funded Interreg North West Europe project lasting until 2023 that sees Plymouth participating as a pilot site to help increase the share of renewable energy in the city and decrease carbon emissions from its buildings.

At the start of 2022, Plymouth became the fifth city where the European project D2Grids will be piloting the development of a 5th generation district heating and cooling (5GDHC) network in North-West Europe. As one of the first 5GDHC networks in the UK, it will also help progress this important technology more widely.

This pilot builds on previous mapping work and concept design for a 5GDHC network that took place as part of an earlier project called HeatNet. The D2Grids pilot is focusing on two clusters in the city centre- Millbay and Civic – as part of a wider masterplan, with the potential to be rolled out further in the city centre area. This is possible in both new developments and existing buildings, with a mix of heating and cooling loads.

These two schemes will eventually be able to be linked together to share waste heat and renewable energy sources, and wider development proposals in the area are being reviewed to include the possibility of being ready to be connected to a larger grid.

The pilot will allow us to demonstrate how various sources of renewable heat can be deployed alongside exploring opportunities to use waste heat, which has significance to tackling the climate crisis beyond the city.

This includes using heat from a number of sources including geothermal, air and even the sea, together with waste heat from cooling. Use of solar photovoltaic (PV) generation on some buildings will further increase the use of renewable energy supplying the heat pumps.

Our participation as a pilot site will help:

• the city develop the approach further
• increase the share of renewable energy
• decrease carbon emissions from our buildings