Vast Village Pump Will Cost £40,000 Per Household
By Paul Homewood
SWAFFHAM PRIOR, England, Dec 6 (Reuters) – In a quiet field in eastern England a vast heat pump generates enough warmth to supply houses throughout a historic village, a pilot project testing ways to spur renewable energy use in a country that is falling behind its net zero targets.
Resembling a large agricultural site, with gleaming silver water vats, the heat pump produces water hot enough to feed existing domestic systems, removing the need for costly home retrofits. A 60-year funding scheme removed upfront costs.
Supporters say the network, the first of its kind in rural Britain, not only shows one way for the UK to catch up with Europe on heat pump adoption, but addresses how it can fund the wider net zero transition when household finances are tight.
"The truth is getting to net zero is going to cost money," said Miles Messenger from Bouygues Energies & Services, which helped design and build the heat network in Swaffham Prior, near the university city of Cambridge.
"What this project brings in particular is a demonstration of how to do everything in one go for a village community."
The government’s official climate advisers have said Britain is not doing enough to meet its net zero target.
If it is to hit the goal by 2050 it will need to decarbonise 28 million homes – a major challenge when 85% rely on piped natural gas for heating and hot water, and when that gas is significantly cheaper than the electricity used by heat pumps.
In Swaffham Prior, where a majority of homes were heated by oil, the team tested multiple scenarios to drive uptake. They found one large network would be more efficient than individual heat pumps, while the community approach and lack of upfront payment meant residents were more willing to sign up.
The 12 million pound ($15 million) cost was covered by a 3 million pound government grant and a loan secured by the local council which will be repaid via household bills over 60 years. To help the switch, bills are index-linked to be in line or less than the cost of heating oil and will in time be indexed to the price of electricity.
So far in a village of two churches, two windmills and around 300 houses, more than 60 are connected to the heat pump which uses both air and ground heat sources. More than 35 are ready to be added, and others are weighing whether to join.
£12 million divided by 300 houses equals £40,000 each. That’s probably double the cost of installing them individually.
And the cost for 28 million homes adds up to £1.12 trillion!
“The truth is getting to net zero is going to cost money”, says the berk behind the project.
He was not kidding!
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
You couldn’t make up the insanity behind the attempt to reach Net Zero if you tried. But the green nutters have lots of insanity and the government falls for the propaganda and wastes taxpayers’ money on insane projects like this, for which the troughers are the only ones who benefit.
Yep, carpetbaggers unite!
The Bouygues group made nearly a billion euros profit last financial year. They’ve got their fingers in several pies. I know of them from the telecoms operation in France, 4G WiFi until I found Leclerc supermarche was considerably cheaper
I recall when Peterborough was being developed to take London overspill back in the 70s they installed community heating, in particular into the new Bretton township. It seems that one by one residents uncoupled themselves from the central boiler house system until it proved unviable to continue. Many complained that it provided insufficient heat, but others just didn’t like the idea of not having control of their temperature environment. I wonder if that psychological element has been considered with its new incarnation.
Had a similar system at the teacher training college I went to. Boiler house in the middle, accommodation block enclosed it on three sides. Pipes went out to middle, carrying hot water, through the blocks, back to the boiler house from the ends of the block. Results? Students in the middle of the runs had pleasantly warm rooms, those in the block centre had windows open all the time to try & cool down, those at the ends had to have fan heaters and radiant fires to keep warm.
“more than 60 are connected to the heat pump which uses both air and ground heat sources. More than 35 are ready to be added, and others are weighing whether to join.”
£12m divided by 95 confirmed installations is £126k each!
build a NEW wee hoosie for that (COST Price – not RRP ) ? + Emissions in the process. Carbon / water/ ENERGY Balance sheet , please ?
Initial budget was £3m government grant plus £9m provided by the council financed by a loan. An additional £3m loan has since been requested by the council who explained that there are extra costs due to higher borrowing rates.
The council stated that they would consider the project a success if half the houses (150) sign up, meaning about £100,000 per household. One of the reasons that many villagers may not join is because they don’t have a wet heating system and replacing existing electric heaters would require the installation of radiators and associated pipework.
This project has had a lot of publicity and won a number of awards.
” publicity and won a number of awards” IOW Social media likes means more
It would be far, far cheaper to install Air-to-Air heatpump systems in each home – and more efficient also. This is the basis of the systems widely used in Sweden. Our village hall has one – with the added benefit of providing air conditioning in the summer.
I agree, air to air heat pumps are much more appealing, however, wouldn’t every house then need ducting installed?
While you can use ducting for A2A systems, it is also possible to use small wall units in each room you want to heat, with simple pipes connecting back to the external heat pump. These units can be surprisingly small for domestic rooms. There are also floor standing units as well as the more typical high mounted units – floor standing units are little more intrusive than a conventional double radiator.
Interesting, thank you.
For rural homes that sounds like 6-12 small units with insulated pipework leading from the pump. What with all the holes in walls and making good that sounds like a lot of disruption compared with replacing an oil boiler with a grid heat connection. Probably why they went for the community system.
There are no UK government grants for air to air systems. The UK is not Sweden and both our climate and housing stock are not conducive to A2A systems.
Digging digging digging – the disturbance and expense – Electric diggers then? Electric made Pipes and insulation ( no oil used anywhere in the process? ) and is 60 years payback time the most economical, or, OR ! ( who stands to profit from these long deals? ) Aye, we’re already almost a QUARTER into this century, and we hear about the Standards of Education in the world OECD https://www.oecd.org/education/education-at-a-glance/
“Miles Messenger….” Well his parents must have had a sense of humour!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Messenger
Interesting link there: sums up our experience with Councillors / their departments. Protocol protocol protocol, … and getting past the Secretary. (not all birds like chocolates)
Essentially an attempt to retrofit a district heating system into a community over 1,000 years old? The Russians did district heating many years ago, but that was when they were building out their massive apartment complexes many years ago.
I wonder what research has been done in comparable European countries where there is extensive district heating, such as Denmark. What types of property can be connected in, such as new-builds, what grants available for conversion electric to district heating and limits on how far a system can be extended to more remote dwellings. What size facility for what size of community? Why heat pump when am engineered geothermal system might be more effective?
Interestingly the world’s oldest operational Nuclear Reactors are Westinghouse units at Beznau, Switzerland, the first came online in 1969 – 54 years old, still going strong and could possibly make it to being an octogenarian.
In the 1980’s they successfully retrofitted the Refuna District Heating System onto them which is also still running. For the modest annual loss of 18GWhe it achieves over 150GWh/th to over 2,400 homes.
One of the proposed developments of nuclear SMRs (with their reduced exclusion zone area size) was to develop district heating systems off them.
IIRC there is a campaign for such a system at Hartlepool to replace the AGR and supply new housing around Seaton Carew with heating.
More details on Refuna https://inis.iaea.org/search/search.aspx?orig_q=RN:24045118
you may also be interested in my comment below regarding Snowdown Colliery.
If I understand the article and have calculated correctly the amount of power per resident (not household) is 39 KW(e)?
Any person with a mortgage knows that borrowing for more than twenty five years is lunacy.
I drove past the old Snowdown Colliery yesterday. Despite the site having its own London/Dover mainline railway station and shutting down 36 years ago, it is still an undeveloped derelict site. So much for lack of brownfield sites in the South East.
The old shafts were over 3,000 feet deep and with humid air temperatures of over 50°C became known to local miners as “Dante’s Inferno”.
A proposal was made in the 90’s to develop the site with a community heating system using wind pumps to raise the hot water down there. Existing holding ponds were to store the cooled water after use and, on return for reheat down the pit, an air ram generator system was to supply peaking power back to the grid.
It made very good sense to develop new housing with such a genuinely sustainable heating and power source, the costs of which would have been divided and financed over several thousand units.
I have no idea why the development did not go ahead when expensive and likely ineffective ideas like this heat pump in Swaffham are supposedly so good that taxpayer money is thrown at them.
Not as much kudos for redevelopment of a brown field site as much as anything else. This is, after all, a marketing project, and Dante’s Inferno Brown field sites are a bit thin on the ground.
Once they start churning them out on mass production lines they’ll get cheaper? 🤪
As government screws over centralized power production, let’s get them to do centralized heating, too!
The people of Swaffham Prior are evil. Animals. Mammals take care of their offspring. It’s what we do. Parents desire to have all of their affairs in order before they pass.
“The truth is getting to net zero is going to cost money”
But you aren’t going to pay it! You are passing the cost on to your progeny! Saddling your GRANDCHILDREN with debt. It is decadence with your children’s, children’s, children’s money.
These are really bad people.
‘A 60-year funding scheme removed upfront costs.’
How long does a ‘vast heat pump’ last? 20 years? 30 years? No chance it will last 60.
At the risk of boring everyone (for a change!) I do not understand why so many crackpot ideas get money thrown at them when fairly sensible ones are ignored.
Paul highlights crazy systems like this one and that in Elgin with colossal sums wasted and yet, as I have mentioned below, a brownfield ex colliery (Snowdown) with mainline station and a genuine renewable energy source to be economically utilised is just rotting away for lack of interest.
As an additional example (again in the 1990 ‘s) an outline proposal was for an additional breakwater to the defunct Folkestone Harbour to enclose a body of water and construct a tidal power station. Most of the required construction effectively already existed.
Rather than directly supply the grid, the power was to pump seawater up to a height of 115M lined artificial reservoir on the nearby clifftop. The construction spoil was to be dumped at the cliff bottom for the generator mount. This unit was to supply rapid peaking power and could also potentially survive on daily arbitrage of nuclear power from either UK (Dungeness) or French (Gravelines via IFA 1) supply.
This idea went down like the original lead balloon and the benefactor opted to fund various “Arts” initiatives instead.
I concur.
Remember tidal power 40 years ago?
To be honest, I think this is preferable to expecting all the householders to stump up tens of thousands each for retrofitting superinsulation and re-installing their heating systems.
Or just let people decide for themselves how they heat their homes.
I was watching that “Secrets of the London Underground” a while back. One thing that caught my attention was that the ground around the tube tunnels has warmed up over the years.
When the tube first started, apparently it was cold down there (there used to be adverts advertising how cool it was in summer). But now, as we know, much of it is too warm, even in winter.
So if that happens to an underground railway system, what is going to happen to large networks of ground source heat pumps?
Below 1metre, temperatures remain constant. For that reason it is possible to extract heat from the ground (without it getting cooler) to heat water above via heat exchangers.
London Underground activity is transferring heat into the tunnel walls, platforms, etc where of brick/concrete which act like storage radiators.
If you are extracting heat how can the surrounding ground remain at the same temperature?
I don’t see the difference ? If the tube has warmed up the surrounding ground over years or decades, why wouldn’t heat pumps cool it down over the same time scale ?
When the tube first started the engines used were steam engines and some even used heated bricks as an energy store to create steam without fire (there was a large furnace at Baker Street). But for the real lowdown on heat in the tube, this is very informative (including the comments, many from engineers who have worked on the problems):
https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/cooling-the-tube-engineering-heat-out-of-the-underground-20873/
Is that a large ground source pump I wonder?
In rural village locations I have often thought one wayforwards would be to use community heating exept why not use the other other readily available heat source (well were we have livestock anyway) methane produced from anerobic digesters? or proper biomass (not imorted from the USA).
Just a thought
Dale Vince (the new age shyster that runs Ecotricity) recently ran an idea to save UK boilers by running them on “BioMethane” { CH4 is CH4 no matter how it is made} derived from grass and seaweed.
He even manged to get some child at UCL to concoct figures (no doubt for a backhander) proving it could be done.
Whilst injecting significant quantities of biomethane into the gas grid is a daft idea, the option of using it in either cylinders or tanks just like LPG actually seems like it could be a good idea. Properties off the gas main or barges mobile homes etc would actually know no difference apart from maybe price. Certainly a lot easier to run a combi boiler and cooker of biomethane than messing about with all this useless and expensive rubbish.
“Using it in either cylinders or tanks just like LPG actually seems like it could be a good idea”
Methane can’t be kept in liquid form without refrigeration, unlike propane & butane. CNG (compressed natural gas) is already used in some transport applications, but it requires much higher pressures, and stronger cylinders, to store anything like the same amount of energy. A local bus company trialled CNG buses (with the tanks stored on the roof!), but they gave up after a year or so…
To Dave Ward, good point, thanks for correcting me. 200+bar for methane is somewhat different from 7 bar for propane! Call me an idiot!
Ho, ho, ho!!! A little research indicates you would have to be either brain dead or seriously conned to subscribe to this system.
First up from the council’s own website
https://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/residents/climate-change-energy-and-environment/climate-change-action/low-carbon-energy/community-heating/swaffham-prior-heat-network/about-swaffham-priors-heat-network
“The mix of air source and ground source heat pumps have capacity to supply 1.7MW of heat to 300 homes located in Swaffham Prior.”
Always run the numbers. At best if 300 are connected you have an average of just 5.67kW (thermal) per house. Good luck keeping warm with that on a cold winter’s day. I think I might just prefer to stick with my boiler rated at over seven times that amount (42kW.)
Second up the magical EPC rating. Here is a modern house for sale in Swaffham Prior boasting its “Environmentally friendly heating system”
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/139315094#/?channel=RES_BUY
Then look at its EPC band. With double glazing, wall insulation, low energy lighting etc it would easily make band C….but with its crap system it only makes band D . Had the government enacted raising EPC ratings for private rentals to band C it would be actually illegal to rent out this house with such a poor heating system. You really could not make it up!
When you add in the inevitable cost of fitting the wood burners and buying logs to actually keep you warm this option will be very expensive indeed to run.
Just wait for the articles in a few years time where people can’t sell their homes because they are long term contracted to this scam.
Reasons to be conned….part 3.
“. To help the switch, bills are index-linked to be in line or less than the cost of heating oil and will in time be indexed to the price of electricity.”
So heating oil currently costs about 75p per litre. It has an energy density of 10.4kWh per litre, about 7p per kWh in a boiler that will likely run at over 90% efficiency thus under 8p per kWh final energy into the house. But then they want their energy “in time be indexed to the price of electricity” Which is currently standing at over 28p per kWh, about to increase next month and sure as hell isn’t going significantly down any time soon.
To sign up for this the residents really would have to be brain dead.
When it says “indexed” I think it will mean the percentage price CHANGE in electricity. Not the price per se.
kzbkzb – “When it says “indexed” I think…” Yes your honour I thought it said that so can you cancel this contract? No …next.
“Just wait for the articles in a few years time where people can’t sell their homes because they are long term contracted to this scam.”
And all their kids are damn sure going to move away as soon as they are able.
BTW, 9 million for 60 years at 5% is ~40,000 per month.
I bet that capacity of 1.7MW is when it is not particularly cold either. Admittedly the outside air temperature shouldn’t make much difference to a ground source heat pump, but we are told that it runs off air source as well. So when it is actually cold like now, it won’t even deliver 5.67kW per house.
When I worked in industry, 20 years ago, we used a simple system to decide on which projects were worth investing, payback in 1 year were on the list, payback in 2 years, after the 1 year ones, payback 3 years and above, forget. Common sense.
When I was an industrial manager, my thoughts were identical to yours. 1 year payback was my operating goal. Projects up to 3 years got consideration, and some made sense. Over 3 years were thrown out instantly.
Well, not really thrown out. Many were filed to see if conditions changed and they became worthwhile. My favorites were labor reduction projects, which were shelved until the union got themselves a pay raise, which made some projects to eliminate them viable. Hee hee.
I thought short-termism was a PROBLEM for the UK, not something to be admired.
It’s short-term thinking that has got us into this mess in the first place.
It depends on the availability of capital.
When spending Other People’s Money, it is infinitely available. And when you are a council, it doesn’t matter, anyway.
Sounds a bit like the Shetlands scheme to use their 3 wind turbines to heat water and circulate that to houses. Shetland has a fair bit of wind and heating is often needed most of the year. The storage tanks would accept variable wind as they would have enough capacity to reduce the temperature fluctuations and their diesel plants could be run at better efficiency for electricity. Failed to get approval.
Perhaps they should recycle the plan as “fighting global warming” or whatever is the current phrase.
60 years pay back time for the vast borrowing by the Council to fund this scheme. Do they have a guarantee that the heat pump system will operate without the need for replacement for 60 years? I doubt it. So the Council will be on the hook for large repair, maintenance and replacement cost after around 10-15 years. Stand by then for the howls of outrage when the householders are presented with large bills for this, totally predictable, expense.
Good point, Chris. With such extreme debt, they aren’t going to have money for maintenance.
If I was a householder in Swaffham I’d be extremely wary of signing up to this scheme, and would need to read the small print very carefully. I suspect that when you sign up, you make yourself liable for all ongoing maintenance and repair costs for the entire 60 year life of the Council’s loan, and that this liability will transfer to anyone foolish enough to buy your house in the future, thus making your house pretty much unsaleable.
I am not sue of the difference between “pitiable” and “pitiful” but if you read the Parish Council (lowest level of local government in the UK) pages of Swaffham Prior, you really have to feel sorry for the “normal” people who live there.
http://www.swaffham-prior.co.uk/pc/CLT.html
In reality a tiny minority of virtue signallers who almost certainly are “academics” at Cambridge University have put this forward.
Their gullibility is whichever “P” word is most suitable.
I think the following answer in the FAQs is quite telling:
“Because of the long term investment required to make a return, heat network
projects historically used long term contracts to tie-in customers once connected. As part of the financial modelling, we will look at the length and terms of these contracts in more detail. We want to ensure the community is not disadvantaged or locked into uneconomic heat contracts. However, initially there may well be a longer term contract while the capital costs are re-paid.”
Since this scheme is to be financed by a 60 year loan, this presumably means that all householders who sign up to this (and subsequent buyers of the houses) will be tied in for 60 years. Maybe there will be an option for householders to buy themselves out but I imagine the cost would be very high, mainly to dissuade too many people from doing this, as it would make the entire scheme non-viable
I think the link in Ray’s post is wrong/broken, so looked up another report: https://tp-heatnetworks.org/trailblazer-swaffham-prior-becomes-first-uk-village-to-retrofit-a-renewable-heating-network-into-an-existing-community/ It says “Oil is not only a fossil fuel and carbon intensive, but it also contributes to local air pollution and makes the village more vulnerable to global challenges that can contribute to shortages and inflated oil prices.”. So much ‘spin’ in 1 sentence!! It continues: “The ambition is to end fuel poverty, reduce dependence on oil and provide cheaper, renewable heating to as many homes as possible, helping the county meet its aim of becoming net zero by 2045.”. Even more spin, and dare I say it, lies!
The key economic questions they don’t address is (1) which of transporting the fuel and converting to heat at premise or transporting the heat is more energy efficient, and (2) what freedom does the individual household have to switch suppliers to gain a cost improvement?
Why do the hairs on the back of my neck say this mad scheme is doomed to failure.
Just to pay back the claimed £40,000/house over 60 years at 6% would cost £2,460/year, I predict tears before bedtime when the £100,000/house for scheme adopters (plus unplanned maintenance/replacement) hits.
They are bankrupting the town.
Town services will end. No money.
Yes, several councils have declared bankruptcy recently, not too surprising with this sort of magical thinking.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67630756
Which begs the question, Nigel, who the hell is lending them this money? And what is the interest rate? Such a risky loan will demand a high rate.
At 8%, it’s 60,000 a month.
43,200,000 for a little town.
Chris I am quite experienced at buying homes at auctions. If you bid then when the gavel hits you are committed – no turning back. The number of times I have seen people buy “cheap” houses with solar panels on the roof only to realise they cannot get finance on the property as the roof has been “leased” to others, is quite common.
Leaving aside this system will be progressively worse at heating your home as more and more people connect (if they do) you will also find it progressively harder to sell your devalued home.
I strongly believe that councils should only concern themselves with running the area under their control and such schemes should not have council involvement or be finaced by them (Well the ratepayer in essence).
Their actions look criminal to me.
Destructive malfeasance.
But… heat pumps need electricity to work, and they need continuous supply not intermittent, occasional supply.
No electricity, no heat pumps. Unless more generating power (reliable, continuous) is installed, unless the entire supply network is upgraded and extended, there will be no electricity.
Buried in the FAQs is an admission that the scheme will include an oil boiler for “backup” although this is said to need to be used “very rarely”
I predict that “very rarely” will morph into “quite often” so the participants in this scheme will be on the hook for oil costs as well as the heat pump operating & maintenance costs and payback of the enormous loan
” … one way for the UK to catch up with Europe on heat pump adoption . . .”
How far down the path is Europe? Or is this a made-up throw-away feel-good line?
The site of this heating facility is visible on Google Earth Pro – Street View.
It is on the north side of Heath Road, satellite view is April 2021, road view is from 2023.
Lat/Long: 52.250871, 0.303720
Why do we want to get to Net Zero?
because apparently according to some ‘the world is on fire!’
So Net Zero makes you on fire AND broke.
Because many people will make vast amounts of money selling us allegedly clean stuff classed as RE, and or it will be imposed on us via tax, as nobody can avoid CO2. And the whole unreliable RE shitshower needs renewing after 3~20 years. Earth lacks the mineral resources to do most of the alleged green rubbish, and the toxic landfill legacy is ignored.
In reality net zero is a green fantasy.
Green = Naive
Any EIA on the potential leaks of toxic / long lived refrigerant gasses ? Known to pollute and persist in water, affecting both kidney and liver function, & probably long term to be banned. Being a victim of an alleged green ‘fuel’ who’s liver function is impaired I neither believe or trust any of the green shite which we are ‘told’ will save the planet, it’s clearly all smoke & bullshit.
More countryside sacrificed in the name of saving the earth, with zero empirical evidence it will have any benefit, other than financial for those involved.
Historically, one of the issues with communal heating systems is a design that does not ensure continued service in the event of failure of any one component i.e. a single component failing potentially means no heat for anyone.
And your neighbors can’t take you in – they are just as cold.
You’ll find out how many people can fit in a house with a wood stove.
Let’s provide an honest cost per month
This is far worse than the scary headline suggests
You can convert to pounds
My calculation was US dollars
Assume a $15 million loan
for 60 years at 6% interest
Total payments including interest
$55.5 million ($40.5 million interest)
Monthly total bond payment
$77.120
Monthly payment per family
$1,285 US dollars
(60 homes connected)
$1,285 a month is quite a heating bill
These numbers assume someone would loan money at 6% interest for 60 years and that the heat pumps would last 60 years — VERY UNLIKELY — when a home heat pump is said to last 10 to 20 years
Just spotted this https://www.positive.news/environment/pumping-hot-inside-britains-first-heat-pump-village/
The “driving force” behind this project is Emma Fletcher. Guess who she works for…..the tentacles are everywhere.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmafletchercambridge/?originalSubdomain=uk
The normal, rational response to a community without a major service (gas), is to bring it in, not build a whole new power/heat station! Ask them if they would put a giant turbine in the middle of the community and sever the outside electrical supply, and you can guess the answer. This is a scheme of colossal lunatic proportions.
That’s what I was thinking. It’s a multi-million pound solution to a thousand pound problem.
‘Around 1.5m UK households – usually rural – rely on oil for central heating.’
This has FA to do with Swaffham Prior.
‘While homes on the gas grid are protected to some degree by capped costs, oil is expensive and prices volatile, making oil users especially vulnerable to fuel poverty.’
Putting my training from Phoenix44 to use, I note that ‘volatile’ means prices go DOWN, also.
‘Fuel poverty’ is government speak for “Put us in charge of your heating.”
‘Vulnarable to’ means it’s possible. It doesn’t mean it’s happening. They spent gazillions to solve a theoretical problem.
So Swaffham Prior now has a communist heating system.
“Governments don’t make business decisions, they make political decisions.” — GC
No better example than the Prior. The die is cast. Expect more really dumb things from there. It’s not a business; it’s politics.
BTW, what is a ‘Prior?’ What’s the story on this town’s name?
The thing is GC that domestic heating oil is not actually that pricey in the UK despite what people may claim. This summer (when people with any sense stock up) the thousand litre rate was just £0.565p per litre. In energy terms it works out at 5.5p per kWh which was actually cheaper than mains gas at the time.
Covid and Ukraine messed things up but prices are stabilising again at just over the 7p per kWh level even on a winter purchase. You can expand this graph out to cover the last 4 years.
https://www.boilerjuice.com/heating-oil-prices-england/