What sort of building projects are most suitable for shared heating?

Any shared heating scheme is centred around the concept of a site utilising one large heat source running very efficiently, rather than each building or property having separate smaller ones running less efficiently – the idea being to reduce overall CO2emissions, increase efficiency and save on running costs.

When we think about shared heating schemes there are two types of application that spring to mind; firstly district heating where you have several buildings connected to a single heat source via underground pipes; and the second one being centralised plants within a single building supplying multiple properties within. This short article describes the types of projects that are ideal for each approach.

District heating

A district heating project has a centralised heat source supplying heating water and / or domestic hot water to two or more separate buildings on the site. The renewable heat source could be Biomass or Biogas, Geothermal, or a boiler for wood or pellets. At Mibec we can offer advice on a range of biomass boilers, ground source, and air source heat pumps which can then be combined with one of our buffer tanks in the central plant location.The central heat source will then be connected to the various buildings in the scheme via an underground pipe network. We offer a wide range of pre-insulated pipes from leading district heating pipe manufacturers like Rehau, Microflex, or our own Mibec DHP pipe.

District heating lends itself well to projects such as social housing, first time buyer housing developments and holiday parks – often fairly compact buildings which would usually require a small boiler in each property. Having one centralised heat source makes a lot of sense from an energy efficiency point of view when you consider the project as a whole. This can be a great strategy for helping developers meet CO2 targets and saving the occupiers money on their heating bills.

The concept is also very popular in geographical areas located off the mains gas grid. The government backed Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) makes basing a project around a large renewable heat source a great option for the owner. The RHI allows the opportunity to receive annual incentive payments for up to 20 years in commercial applications. District heating is therefore widely used in agricultural applications which often fall into this commercial RHI bracket. Typicallyin an agricultural project there could be a combination of residential properties on the site, perhaps a few small business units, along with buildings that need heating for agricultural processes (drying gain etc). All of these would be receiving their heat from say a central biogas plant utilising wastage from the farm processes, with the owner receiving the RHI benefits.

Shared heating inside buildings

The shared heating principle is often also used in flats and apartment blocks, again where is makes sense to have a large centralised heat source supplying all of the properties, rather than each having a separate small boiler. For this sort of application, at Mibec we offer a range of Heat Interface Units (HIUs), with the principle being that each apartment has its own HIU installed, which uses heat distributed from the central network to provide heating and hot water for use in the home, replacing the requirement for individual boilers in each property. HIUs can be supplied in a number of permutations to suit project, and budget. Models are designed to offer both supply and very importantly individual metering of domestic hot water (DHW) and / or primary heating water.

We offer a full free of charge specification service covering the whole of the UK, designed to support architects, specifiers or contractors, helping you to select a heating solution to fully meet your needs. Please feel free to email or call our support department on 01948 661639 where one of our highly trained advisers will be happy to help you.