14 things we've learned about heat

The sun’s shining, but it’s policy that’s driving how Scotland keeps warm.

It’s easy to be flippant about heat when it's warm outside, but capturing and transporting that heat – and storing it between seasons – isn’t easy.

This week saw Scottish Renewables' Low-Carbon Heat Conference in Perth.
Keynote speaker Paul Wheelhouse, Scotland’s new Energy Minister, opened the event by telling how Scotland’s challenging climate targets have already been described as ‘impressive’ by the UN’s Climate Change Secretary.

In the same session, there was enthusiasm for the Scottish Government’s recently-appointed Director of Energy and Climate Change, Chris Stark’s, comments when he said:

“We should view climate targets as a stimulus, not as a problem”.

He feels "the sweet spot for this is space heating" – largely as heat makes up more than half of Scotland’s total annual energy demand and offers key wins if policies can be made to work.

That enthusiasm came with a message to Westminster that Scotland will move ahead on heat, with the new Holyrood administration taking the long view on energy consumption (mainly devolved) as well as generation (reserved) when setting policy.

Natural Power’s Senior Renewable Heat Manager Andy Yuill wrote a column for the Scotsman which appeared on the day of the conference.

In it, he argued that capturing waste heat is key to meeting those climate targets (you can read it here).

He followed that up at conference yesterday morning with impassioned pleas for reform of the RHI.

Andy’s plans include incentivising carbon reductions rather than specific technologies, and rolling Energy Performance Certificate ratings into the mechanism to make best use of the renewable heat that’s generated.

Do both those, he said, and

“you'll soon see the market start to deliver the most cost effective solutions”.

One of those might be heat pumps, and Mitsubishi Electric Living Environmental Systems’ Jonathan Prescott presented a case study in the same session which showed the technology in action.

The Kingston Heights housing development of 137 flats is heated not only by a heat pump which takes heat from the River Thames but also, in a cutting-edge twist, by waste heat from the cooling systems of an adjacent 142-room hotel. You can see more here.

The Association for Decentralised Energy’s Tim Rotheray spoke in the Low-Carbon Heat Conference’s third session – and underlined that delegates’ fears over slow take-up of renewable heat systems were being heard.

He told how

“There's as hugely increased interest in heat, and there is increasing government recognition of that.”

Much of that interest is directed at the carbon reduction gains we could see from district heating systems, and Tim’s organisation has been working to address early-adopter issues there for some time.

"If we're expecting the industry to grow we need to make it investable. We need to make people comfortable with it,” he said, before introducing Bindi Patel, head of the newly formed Heat Trust.

Its mission, she’s explained, was designed as a “commitment to giving customers peace of mind in their heating and hot water supply”.

Since November, the voluntary industry-led Heat Trust scheme has focussed on building trust between heat networks and their customers by promoting transparency and providing recourse to an independent ombudsman.

Her aim, she said in closing, should be shared by all who work in the heat sector – one whose importance is only continuing to grow:

“To make the legacy of heat networks about customer satisfaction as much as it is about carbon savings”.

Blog by Policy Manager Stephanie Clark