Price pledge as Glasgow's £300m heating scheme takes shape

The Herald Scotland

12 hours ago

Gren declared the network, which is scheduled to be operational from early 2027, will cut emissions, reduce bills, and tackle fuel poverty in a city where many people have been unable to heat their homes as energy prices have spiralled in recent years.
An outline planning application has been lodged with Glasgow City Council for the first phase of the proposed district heating network.
Gren forecasts that the £300 million Energy on Clyde investment project will boost the local economy by creating around 500 jobs during the construction phase, in addition to 40 permanent roles.
Read more:
'We are proposing to do something that is in the city's energy strategy,' Mr Reynolds said. 'We are doing a thing the city has already said it wants to do. Our strategy is actually very complementary to Glasgow City Council's district heating strategy.
'One of the challenges with doing heat networks is getting good heat sources, so our ability to transfer that heat from South Clyde across the south side, over the river and up into the city means Glasgow City Council can effectively have the cheaper heat we are able to provide across a wider geographical area.'
He added: 'Doing what we are doing can accelerate Glasgow's ability to then have heat zones and areas where people are developing heat networks which won't always be Gren. It can be multiple organisations, all of which can use heat from this plant.'
Construction is under way on the South Clyde Energy Centre facility, which Gren is building under a joint venture with Fortum and is expected to be completed in November. It is proposed that heat offtake from the centre, which will generate energy from non-hazardous domestic and commercial waste created via recycling, will link up with the district heating scheme.
'We are planning to have heat on six months after that [plant becomes operational], so roughly April time,' Mr Reynolds said. 'It is going well. We have submitted our outline planning application for the first part of the network. Clearly, what we want to be able to do is get a heat pipe, an electrical network in the ground before we have got lots of waste coming down that road. We have got a window in the next 18 months to get the network down Bogmoor Road on to Renfrew Road.'
Read more:
Mr Reynolds said the network will operate very similarly to domestic central heating systems, 'just much bigger'.
While district heating has not taken root in Scotland because it pursued the gas route during the boom in North Sea production in decades past, it is widely used in European cities such as Amsterdam, Berlin, and across Sweden, where Mr Reynolds understands the model has '68% penetration' of the market. Most were built in the '70s, '80s, and '90s, when there was a 'boom in industrialisation and city planning became a big thing'.
He said: 'Where you see heat networks is where people have historically not had cheap gas available to them. There are some in the UK. There is an old one in Pimlico, there's one in Sheffield that has been around for a long time, there is one in Nottingham that's been around for a long time. But it is a comparatively new technology.
'For a customer, it is quite a switch. They are going from the idea of owning their own boiler, buying gas, and frankly the false promise of [being] rich in gas supply means that you save money, and that has been proven to make absolutely no difference. And you are liable and responsible for that boiler, so if the boiler breaks, it is your problem, you have got to fix it, you have got to replace it. If it needs servicing, you pay for it to be serviced.'
With district heating networks, households do not have boilers which need to be maintained and are instead supplied with heat, with a service charge applied by a company for the maintenance of the system.
Mr Reynolds acknowledged shifting to district heating will involve a big culture change that some people may not like because it removes control from them.
(Image: Gren) Mike Reynolds said the district heating network can be a 'game-changer' for Glasgow
He said: 'There is a job we have to do as a sector to give people confidence that this system works. Ultimately, the bigger thing that we are able to do in Glasgow, which is the game-changer to be honest, is that we are able to set a price that is [no more expensive than] gas. We are not asking you to pay anymore, it is low-carbon, and we can fix it for 20 years. We can... give you not only confidence that it is not higher than gas today, it is not going to go up disproportionately through inflation over the next 20 years.'
Mr Reynolds said Gren has so far invested more than £100m in the Glasgow project, with a further £150m set to follow.
He said: 'We re investing on the basis that this is a real solution, it is practical, it works. It does decarbonise. This is not the energy system we will be running in 80 years' time. It is the energy system that works for the next 40 years.'