Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, information his Department holds on the fuel sources for district heating systems delivered under the Government’s Heat Networks Investment Programme from April 2019, and if he will make a statement.

In December 2018 we published in ‘Heat networks: Developing a market framework’ our estimate of the fuel sources that will be used in projects that will come forward under the Heat Network Investment Project. The assumed technology mix is displayed in the figure below. The estimate is based on analysis of HNIP pilot data and surveys of the project pipeline. The estimate is dynamic as it is assumed original CHP plants are replaced with lower-carbon systems at the end of their operational life.

The estimated technology mix is 22% gas back-up boiler, 33% gas CHP, 20% EfW incinerator, 5% biomass, 10% heat pump and 10% waste heat recovery.