Opportunities to decarbonize heat in the UK using Urban Wastewater Heat Recovery

Journal article


Ali, S. and Gillich, A. (2021). Opportunities to decarbonize heat in the UK using Urban Wastewater Heat Recovery. Building Services Engineering Research and Technology. https://doi.org/10.1177/01436244211034739
AuthorsAli, S. and Gillich, A.
Abstract

By 2050, the UK government plans to create ‘Net zero society’.1 To meet this ambitious target, the deployment of low carbon technologies is an urgent priority. The low carbon heat recovery technologies such as heat recovery from sewage via heat pump can play an important role. It is based on recovering heat from the sewage that is added by the consumer, used and flushed in the sewer. This technology is currently successfully operating in many cities around the world. In the UK, there is also a rising interest to explore this technology after successful sewage heat recovery demonstration project at Borders College, Galashiels, Scotland.2 However, further experimental research is needed to build the evidence base, replicate, and de-risk the concept elsewhere in the UK. The Home Energy 4 Tomorrow (HE4T) project at London South Bank University was created to address this evidence gap. This is the fourth article in the series of outputs on sewage heat recovery and presents some results using sewage data from the UK’s capital London. These data are scarce and provide useful information on the variation of flows and temperatures encountered in the sewers of the UK’s capital. Lastly, we discuss the recoverable heat potential along with policy implications for the UK heat strategy.

KeywordsWastewater heat recovery, raw wastewater, treated wastewater, wastewater temperature, wastewater treatment, wastewater treatment plant, heat pump, low carbon heat
Year2021
JournalBuilding Services Engineering Research and Technology
PublisherSage
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1177/01436244211034739
Web address (URL)https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01436244211034739
Publication dates
Online29 Jul 2021
Publication process dates
Accepted06 Jul 2021
Deposited25 Aug 2021
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