Community Heating Systems

Community heating suffers some heat losses and sometimes high capital costs, but in return creates future-proofed developments that are ready for new technologies. A community heating system has a central heat source (typically a gas or biomass boiler), a heat distribution network and varying types of heat distribution system in each dwelling. It may serve a handful of flats in a small block, a large tower block or possibly several streets of buildings. However in a retrofit situation it requires high density to be cost effective.

Some systems only provide space heating, not hot water. Some have a large central hot water tank with direct supply to flats, while others use heat-exchangers within each flat. Community heating can make use of a wide number of heat sources and these can be changed more easily according to availability and price than individual systems. For example, switching to a biomass boiler is relatively straight forward and cost effective.