Exclusive by The Guardian: plan is to harness ‘waste heat’ and cut carbon emissions for households connected to district networks.

if the trial succeeds, about 1,300 National Grid substations could soon act as neighbourhood ‘boilers’ by piping water heated by the substations into nearby heating networks. Photograph: Tobias Schwarz/Reuters

Thousands of homes could soon be warmed by the heat from giant electricity grid transformers for the first time as part of new plans to harness “waste heat” and cut carbon emissions from home heating.

Trials are due to begin on how to capture the heat generated by transmission network transformers, owned by National Grid, to provide home heating for households connected to district heating networks operated by SSE.

Currently, hot air is vented from the giant substations to help cool the transformers that help to control the electricity running through National Grid’s high-voltage transmission lines.

However, if the trial succeeds, about 1,300 National Grid substations could soon act as neighbourhood “boilers”, piping water heated by the substations into nearby heating networks, and on into the thousands of homes that use SSE’s services.

Read the full article here.