The operation and maintenance of communal heating has often been an after-thought, with heat network owners often bundling the maintenance of the network in with the contracts for the maintenance of their housing stock with conventional heating systems e.g., individual gas boilers. However, the current economic climate means that communal heating scheme operators must now consider specialist operations and maintenance, not only to save on operating costs but also to benefit residents. Here’s why…

Operating and maintaining a heat network has generally been a thorn in the side of communal heating scheme operators. In the UK, most operators are used to conventional heating systems within their housing stock and a lack of expertise and understanding, means that often heat networks are not operated or maintained to their optimum output.

Unlike conventional heating systems, where the efficient operation of the system is unimportant, for communal heating ensuring the system is functioning at its most effective is imperative to mitigating rising costs, reducing carbon, and providing a better service to the residents who are served by the heat network.

Why should you be reviewing the operation and maintenance of your communal heating?

In the past, the operation and maintenance of heat networks has often been considered a tick box exercise, much like servicing a boiler once a year. However, against a backdrop of spiralling gas prices and a rising cost of living, heat networks cannot continue to be operated and maintained in this way.

Heat networks operate on a continuous basis, meaning that the level of efficiency at which the system operates is paramount to reducing cost and carbon emissions. In the past, communal heating operators and residents have benefitted from low commercial gas costs meaning that heat losses on the system were negligible and required no further action.

However, this is no longer the case. The cost of procuring commercial gas is higher than ever and with no domestic price cap to protect residents from soaring bills and limited support from the Government in the form of the Energy Bill Relief Scheme (EBRS), communal heating operators must address the performance of their communal heating schemes to support residents and ensure operating costs remain at manageable levels.

How can operation and maintenance help reduce costs on communal heating schemes?

Operation and maintenance can be critical in helping to reduce costs to both operators and residents on communal heating schemes. However, this can only be done through data-driven, performance managed operation and maintenance which considers the heat network in its entirety.

By collecting the data and employing a specialist who can analyse and make targeted interventions on their communal heating systems to pinpoint the lowest areas of performance, operators can make significant cost savings by improving the efficiency of the scheme and reducing the carbon footprint. On average, schemes in the UK operate at between 35-45% efficiency, with the potential to operate at 65% efficiency.

As an example of how improving heat network efficiency through performance managed and data-driven operations can cut cost and carbon, is illustrated below.

Of course, maintenance cannot resolve all the problems with a communal heating system. However, analysis on several schemes which we undertook optimisation studies for under the first round of Heat Network Efficiency Scheme (HNES) funding, unearthed several issues.

Many of which were identified to be affecting efficiency and therefore were costing more, and could have been resolved through a structured, data-driven and performance managed maintenance regime. Some of these interventions included:

• Water treatment
• Missing insultation
• HIU repair
• Metering repair
• Water leaks
• Control settings
• Poor delta T across the network
• Poor energy to flow ratio

How do residents on communal heating benefit from better operation and maintenance?

Data-driven, performance managed operations and maintenance can improve the efficiency of communal heating systems. As a result, because the system is performing better, the amount of gas needed is lower because the system does not need to work as hard to provide the same amount of heat and hot water. This can then mean that the tariff for residents may be reduced as the overall gas bill for the operator is lower.

In addition, a well-maintained system, which is continuously monitored using real-time data, is much more likely to provide residents with a more reliable source of heat and hot water, creating a better experience for residents with less outages and therefore less disruption and inconvenience.

Case study

Switch2 has been operating and maintaining a 453-property scheme since 2016. Initially, the client was faced with unhappy residents due to regular outages and increased bills because of the additional gas and electricity required to operate the increased duty cycle on the plant and wider equipment.

Switch2 implemented their innovate Decarbonise, Operate and Maintain solution which uses digitisation and artificial intelligence (AI) to provide constant, real-time monitoring of performance. This allowed for inefficiencies and faults to be identified, diagnosed, and automatically remedied, often before customers were aware there is a problem.

Through implementing the solution, the efficiency of the heat network increased by 41%, which lead to a total fuel saving of £33,507 and a 71% decrease in engineer call outs for no supply.

How can Switch2 help?

Switch2 are specialists in operating and maintaining heat networks. With over 40 years’ experience in the industry, we understand how important it is to provide a good experience for residents who live on communal heating.

If you’re interested to see how much you could save by improving the efficiency of your communal heat network, try our heat network efficiency savings calculator. Or, if you would like to speak to one of our team about the operation and maintenance of your communal heating, complete the form below and one of our team will come back to you shortly.