The £4.175 million HNES government grant scheme supports performance improvements to existing heat networks. The aim is to deliver sustained efficiency savings in fuel consumption and carbon emissions to provide a greener, more reliable, cost effective heat supply for residents.

Switch2 will work with partners to carry out optimisation studies, which will identify opportunities to increase efficiency and reduce carbon emissions at 8 of the district and community heating schemes. At the 9th project, funding will be used to support upgrades to heat network insulation and controls, which will result in cost and carbon savings.

The studies will be informed by Switch2's Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled Optimise technology, which uses big data and remote connectivity to gain complete visibility of performance across the entire heat network.

In this way, inefficiencies and faults can be identified, diagnosed and often remotely remedied. Switch2's Optimise platform has helped to deliver average 35% energy savings across other existing heat networks, where it has informed highly targeted improvements.

Richard Harrison, CEO of Switch2 Energy said 'Improving the energy and operational performance of the UK's 17,000 legacy heat networks, many of which run at high temperatures and low efficiencies, can make a huge contribution to tackling rising energy costs and decarbonising heat.

'The HNES funding will enable us to take an intelligent approach to identifying and remedying these inefficiencies to benefit the thousands of residents connected to the 9 heat networks involved, while supporting the UK's transition to net zero.'