Taylor Wimpey鈥檚 Swinnow Park housing development in Wetherby is have a community heat hub installed 鈥� like a district heating network but on a smaller, low-density, low-rise scale.
The 762 homes on Swinnow Park, a mix of two-, three-, four- and five-bedroom properties, which will all be connected to the community heat hub, replacing gas across the whole site.
The heating system is being installed by utilities contractor GTC, part of Brookfield Utilities UK (BUUK).
Swinnow Park is the second community heat hub that Taylor Wimpey has contracted from GTC, with a site already delivering low-carbon heat and hotwater at Chilton Woods, in Sudbury, Suffolk.聽 The third development with a community heat hub can be found at Vistry鈥檚 The Gateway in Bexhill, East Sussex.
Taylor Wimpey Yorkshire sales and marketing director Sam Evans said: 鈥淎s housebuilders, it鈥檚 important for us to embrace other forms of heating as part of the UK government鈥檚 commitment to reducing carbon emissions to net zero by 2050.
鈥淚n working with GTC, we believe this efficient solution is an innovative step forward by providing a single, large air source heat pump to deliver heat to our new homes through individual heat interface units, with no need for a gas boiler.鈥�
A GTC spokesperson added: 鈥淥ur Community Heat Hubs answer the eagerly anticipated Future Homes Standard by reducing carbon emissions by 75-80% from day one.
鈥淭he Future Homes Standard contains two notional specifications 鈥� heat pumps and heat networks.聽 The community heat hub combines these two specifications in one future-proofed, net-zero solution.鈥�
The community heat hub explained
Low carbon heat is produced in a community heat hub using large-scale, heat pumps, powered by low carbon electricity. Heat is pumped to each home, in the form of hot water, using our underground flow and return high efficiency pipe network.
The thermal water storage tank in the community heat hub will be replenished when wholesale electricity costs are lower. This store will reduce peak demand on the grid, reducing the need for reinforcement. Back-up electric boilers ensure a resilient supply of hot water.
The community heat hub enables a smart grid. The heat hub is a single, controllable exit point for the electricity grid. Thermal stores are a pragmatic demand side response (DSR). The stores provide two hours of storage in the coldest winter conditions, and longer at other times. This allows the plant in the heat hub to be switched off when demand on the grid is high. This gives potential to reduce site wide grid capacity.
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