The Scottish water board has set up a new joint venture with the UK subsidiary of a Canadian energy company to develop waste water heat recovery systems across Scotland.
The new alliance is the result of a three year informal collaboration between SHARC and Scottish Water Horizons, which has created a £20 million pipeline of potential installations across Scotland that, when deployed, would generate 170 GWHs per year of heating and cooling to displace the fossil fuel currently used.
The joint venture will be known as Bandwidth Energy and will manage the installation and maintenance of a number of green energy projects which are currently in the advanced stages of planning.
Scottish Water Horizons will provide commercial funding for the projects, with SHARC Energy providing the design, build and operational expertise for the green energy installations.
The Scot-Govt. is providing 50 per cent grant capital support through its Low Carbon Infrastructure Transition Programme.
The expansion of heat from wastewater programme follow the launch of the UK’s first sewage heat recovery system, developed and installed by SHARC and facilitated by Scottish Water Horizons, at Borders College in Galashiels. This will displace 1.8 GWhs (Giga Watt hours) of natural gas and save over 150 tonnes of carbon emissions per year.
The system provides heating and cooling to customers through a heat supply agreement. This works much like that of any energy supplier, but the main difference is that customers have no up-front costs.
Russ Burton, SHARC’s Chief Operating Officer said: “Having the support from Scottish Water Horizons will give customers confidence in the SHARC technology, positioning it as a sustainable and viable wastewater heat recovery solution.
“With gas prices constantly fluctuating, our heat supply agreement gives cost certainty by guaranteeing the price for the length of the agreement.”
Paul Kerr, Managing Director, Scottish Water Horizons, said: “Heat accounts for over 50 per cent of Scotland’s total energy use, so by forming this alliance to deploy further heat from waste water schemes, we can help further develop Scotland’s low carbon economy.”
21 Mar 2018
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