It’s hard to believe that HUH has only been going six months! Having started as a forwarded news article to the village chat group, we have now got our fingers and toes crossed to see if we will receive grant funding to pay for a study into the feasibility of a heat network for Upper Heyford. We’re going to write a few blog posts like this one to reflect on what we’ve learned, in case it’s of use to others.
One of the first things we did – which we focus on in this post – is to set out three principles that we have committed ourselves to, on behalf of the village. By way of a reminder, these are as follows:
Provide the same heat output (hot water and central heating) as a property’s existing oil or gas boiler at less cost
Provide a sustainable, affordable and reliable supply of renewable heat energy for decades to come
Cut the carbon footprint of the village to contribute towards the UK’s 2050 Carbon Neutral goals
Let’s look at these in turn.
Same heat output at less cost
In other words, the system has to be more efficient than what it is replacing. With heating oil and propane gas, that’s probably relatively straightforward. For the 26 properties in the village on mains gas, we know that under current policy approaches, mains gas in the UK is considerably cheaper than the renewable electricity that will likely support the heat source(s) the village would end up with. However, most commentators are expecting the gas price to increase significantly to encourage people to switch to lower-carbon heating.
Also important here is the same heat output – some heat networks are only configured to product less output (in the 50-60°C range) than conventional central heating systems. Whereas we have seen from the Swaffham Priors scheme (Click here to learn more) that it is possible to create heat at a level that most people are used to, and comfortable with. This is especially important for the more elderly residents of the village, but is also key to maintaining interest in the shift of heating approach (to renewables) for many of us in Upper Heyford.
It’s worth noting that extending the gas main into the rest of the village would not work for two reasons. The first is cost – a villager has had a quote of £40,000 to extend the existing mains to their property, and we understand that the cost of an entire network rollout would be something approaching £10,000 per remaining property (to which each home owner would need to add a new boiler, radiators, etc). The second is that gas is being superseded, with new homes having to be built without gas boilers from 2025. It’s a technology you wouldn’t want to spend your money on bringing into your home nowadays.
Sustainability, affordability and reliability
We want a system that’s going to work – based on proven technology that provides reassurance that it’s not going to fail on a snowy night in Oxfordshire. The last thing we want is for residents not to be able to trust their homes will be warm, day in, day out. Any system we develop for the village has to be reliable, with funding in place to keep it well-maintained through bills paid over time.
And we also want a system that’s not as dependent on the latest geopolitical goings-on. While the prices we’ll pay for heat will be most probably linked to electricity, most of that will come from renewable sources based in and around the UK (and potentially in and around the village). Moreover, a village heat network, owned by the village or Oxfordshire County Council (the latter providing some insurance against major failure of the system), in the residents’ gift to renew and maintain, will make residents far less dependent on monopoly networks owned elsewhere, regulated nationally, and paid for on the basis of charges levied to support other people’s networks as well as your own.