About this Project

The Northern Gateway Heat Network is a flagship low carbon district heat system that will be the largest of its type in the UK.

Colchester Amphora Energy Ltd is developing this innovative low-carbon heat network in partnership with Colchester City Council (CCC). It will supply heat to homes, offices and healthcare facilities at Colchester’s new Northern Gateway development.

This flagship project uses an open loop ground source heat pump as the primary heat source to provide a low carbon heat solution to residents, businesses and other commercial users.

In total, the scheme will provide heat to 200 houses, 450 flats, 35,000 m² of office space and 9,000 m² of healthcare facilities. The first new homes are expected to be available from the Spring of 2023.

The project is the first of its kind to be used on this scale in the UK, using a confined chalk aquifer, and will deliver 5.5 GWhrs of heat a year with 75% of hot water for heating and washing being generated by the heat pump.

This significant flagship project is a key element in meeting the Council’s climate change ambitions and has the support of the Department for Business, Enterprise and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) through a £3.45m Heat Network Investment Project grant.

HOW IT WORKS 

The low carbon district heat system will pump water out of the ground at 13 degrees centigrade from boreholes 135 metres deep into the chalk aquifer below site, pass it through a heat pump which abstracts 8 degrees of heat and then put the water back into the aquifer.

The heat abstracted from the borehole water is concentrated to 65 degrees and then piped to all the buildings on the development for hot water and heating and will provide 75% of the heat demand when the new development has been built out. Gas boilers provide additional heat on cold winter  days and are for back up.