EXETER-based renewable energy firm Zero has received a £378,780 development grant from DECC to support its work in promoting the uptake of heat networks in the UK.
The grant takes the company through to Phase 2 of the ‘Heat Network Small Business Research Initiative Competition’. The competition’s main objective was to identify innovation to help deliver the Government’s ambitions for heat network development to cost-effectively meet 43% of the UK’s heat demand by 2050.
A report by the Committee on Climate Change agreed with DECC that heat networks can play an important part of the overall plan for lower carbon heating in the decades ahead. There are currently approximately 2,000 heat networks in the UK, supplying heat to 210,000 dwellings and 1,700 commercial and public buildings. A further 150 schemes are known to be under development by local authorities across the UK. ZERO hopes to dramatically improve these statistics.
Throughout the grant funding application process Zero has been working in close collaboration with another Exeter firm, Granted – which specialises in providing bespoke grant funding advice to private, public and not-for-profit sectors.
Zero MD Finian Patrick said: “We are very grateful for the support of Granted through this whole process, without whom we would never have had the time, capability or resources to achieve this. We have been working with Granted for the last five years and their support and expertise in writing informed, intelligent grant applications is worth its weight in gold.
“Reaching Phase 1 provided ZERO with vital funding to demonstrate the feasibility of our proposed project, while Phase 2 will involve demonstrating the technologies selected from Phase 1 on existing heat networks or those due for construction by the end of 2015.”
