Our thinking

Parliament powered by poo

22 November, 2024

With snowfall across the country this week, many of us turned up the thermostat, but would you be surprised to discover your heating was sourced from sewers? This will soon be the reality for MPs in the Houses of Parliament following completion of the recently announced £1 billion scheme in London which will harness waste heat from London’s sewers, the tube network and the Thames to supply low-carbon heating to the South Westminster Area Network.  

The project will provide sustainable heating to approximately 1,000 buildings, including the National Portrait Gallery, and should cut carbon emissions by 75,000 tonnes, equivalent to planting 1.2 million trees.  

London’s initiative fits part of a broader global trend in which waste heat is used to accelerate decarbonisation. Data centres, notorious for their energy intensity, are being utilised with their waste energy being used to warm thousands of homes in Sweden and even Olympic pools in Paris. Similarly in Vancouver, the False Creek Neighbourhood Energy Utility uses waste heat from sewage to heat buildings. Even at a smaller scale waste energy is being harnessed, for example regenerative braking systems in cars, trains and cranes capture kinetic energy lost through breaking and convert it into electrical energy to store in batteries.  

Projects like these prove sustainability should not use a one size fits all approach; by using a holistic approach with diverse levers for change we can accelerate progress towards net-zero targets without overburdening individual sectors or supply chains. 

By Nia Vines