About Us
HeatGrid Ireland was founded by Dr. David Connolly and is supported by Asper Investment Management, who both have extensive experience in district heating and the Irish energy sector.
Our aim is to accelerate the delivery of district heating projects across the island of Ireland by providing a full turnkey solution to customers who wish to connect, from early stage development, funding and construction of the project, as well as ongoing operation and billing related to the system.
How It Works
District heating is the most widely used and cost-effective method of supplying low-carbon heat in urban areas. All of the countries in Europe who are leading in terms of renewable heat, also have the most well-established district heating networks. For example, countries such as Sweden, Estonia, Lithuania and Finland are already supplying approximately 50% of their total heat in buildings from district heating.
The basic principle of sustainable district heating is to put low-carbon heat, typically in the form of renewable heat or ‘waste heat’, via hot water into a pipe network which then carries the heat to end consumers. It is built around three key components:
Heat supply: As hot water is the transfer medium in district heating, a large variety of sources can be used to supply heat. The most common form of zero carbon supply is ‘waste heat’ which is heat that is currently being discarded by existing facilities such as power plants, waste incinerators, and industry. Renewable heat can also be used to heat hot water with the most common sources being heat pumps utilising low-carbon electricity, geothermal, bioenergy and solar thermal. This variety of options provides greater resilience on pricing as the heat supply can adapt and even use different combinations of sources.
Heat network: It is a series of pre-insulated pipes which connect the heat supply to the end consumer. Hot water is pumped through the pipes at an entry temperature of approximately 60-80 degrees Celsius and received back from the network at a temperature approximately 20-30 degrees below this.
Heat Consumer: At the end of the pipe there is a heat exchanger which transfers the heat from the pipe network into the final consumer’s premises. In the majority of cases this is a building which requires space heating and hot water, but in some cases it may be for industrial process heat. The heat exchanger is often referred to as a substation and it is typically placed in the same location as the existing central boiler in the building.
In addition to providing low-carbon heat, one of the most significant benefits of district heating is that it simplifies the transition to low-carbon buildings, in particular for existing buildings. As district heating networks typically provide heat at 60-80 degrees Celsius, it can often be a direct replacement for an existing boiler without any additional fabric upgrades to the building. The fabric upgrades can still be implemented in parallel or after the building is connected to a network, but critically, unlike for an individual heat pump, the upgrades do not need to be done in advance of the connection. As a result, a building can transition to a low-carbon heat supply quicker, with less intrusion and more cost-effectively.
HeatGrid Ireland provides a full turnkey solution across all three of these components and covers all parts of the project, from identifying suitable locations, feasibility, planning, detailed design, funding, construction, operating and expanding the network.
Our Values
SUSTAINABLE
HeatGrid develops sustainable, smart and efficient district heating systems by integrating a mix of sustainable heating techologies which have low-to-zero carbon emissions and are in line with Ireland's long-term goal to fully decarbonise its heating sector.
CUSTOMER LED
HeatGrid delivers cost-effective and high-quality district heating systems by using reputable equipment with robust operating systems. HeatGrid aims to deliver high levels of customer satisfaction and engagement.
RELIABLE
HeatGrid provides local and reliable heat whilst maintaining the highest standards on health & safety and employment work practices in everything we do and we treat our customers and business partners fairly and responsibly.
URGENCY
HeatGrid will urgently develop efficient district heating networks which bring affordable heat to Ireland from almost zero district heating today to as close as possible to the government target of 800 GWh (3%) by 2025 and 2700 GWh (10%) by 2030.
SCALABLE
HeatGrid aims to work on projects and systems that scale.