New London heating plan is slightly strange

WILL YOUR household waste be heating homes and businesses along the Thames in the next decade? It’s a green way of doing things, but it’s potentially rather cumbersome.

The idea has been around a while, and it has just been awarded £41 million in government funding. The plan is to start at the Cory waste facility in Bexley, where heat will be captured from Cory’s “energy from waste” (EfW) facility. The heat will be transported, in the form of hot water, via a system of pipes known as the London Strategic Heat Main (LSHM). It is estimated that the scheme may be able to use this recycled heat to keep 650,000 homes heated.

The first phase of the project will seen the LSHM bring the hot water from Bexley to Greenwich, Lewisham, Southwark, the City of London, Lambeth and Westminster. It may pick up surplus heat from offices, data centres and even the Tube as it goes.

The second stage, which is being developed but for which no planning application has yet been submitted, could go across East London from Barking & Dagenham to Tower Hamlets.

The first phase will take around eight years to build, but there is an interim plan – which is where the “slightly strange” comes in. The project organisers want to use electric barges to transport hot water along 15 miles of the Thames each day – with the transporting of hot water being transferred to a LSHM when the giant pipe is built. There will be hot water tanks on pontoons along the river, and there is talk about these being developed into “Thames Floating Gardens” to create new green spaces.

The main aim of the project is to cut emissions and provide a more sustainable source of heating, but it should also provide jobs too – and a cheaper way of heating your home (probably). It does sound a rather futuristic scheme, but let’s hope it works.

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