Heat & Industrial Decarbonisation Project of the Year

Focusing on projects tackling heat and hard-to-abate industrial processes, including heat pumps, heat recovery, geo-exchange and manufacturing process change.

The finalists

Erda Energy & Oxford Brookes University

Turning GSHP into Geo-exchange

Erda Energy has reconfigured a ground source heat pump installation at Oxford Brookes University's Headington campus into a geo-exchange system, using the same 14 deep boreholes to raise output from 1.2GWh to over 3.5GWh a year by adding heat pumps and integrated cooling. Surplus heat drawn off during cooling is stored underground rather than rejected, creating a seasonal thermal store. Space constraints on the campus had ruled out conventional alternatives. Gas consumption has fallen 53%, from 7.5GWh to 3.5GWh a year, contributing to a 63% cut in Scope 1 and 2 emissions against a 2010 baseline.

Haydale

JustHeat

JustHeat is a low-voltage electric underfloor heating system developed by Haydale after more than a decade of graphene research in South Wales. Graphene conducts heat quickly and efficiently, and the product is supplied as a thin, flexible film running at 48V, allowing installation in existing buildings without the disruption of a wet heating system. Independent testing recorded warm-up from 22C to 30C in around 75 seconds and up to 39% lower energy use than conventional electric underfloor heating, with room-by-room control. Haydale states emissions can fall by up to 90% where renewable electricity powers the system.

HEINEKEN UK

Manchester Brewery Heat Pump Project

HEINEKEN UK has retrofitted a centralised heat pump system at its Manchester brewery, which opened in 1875, capturing waste heat from refrigeration plant and redistributing it through a new site-wide hot water network. The £28.2m investment included £3.7m from the Government's Industrial Energy Transformation Fund. Fitting the network around existing infrastructure while brewing continued was the central challenge. A 12 to 18-month optimisation phase is now under way.

HotGreen & Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

Mölln pilot

HotGreen and Coca-Cola Europacific Partners are preparing a pilot to replace fossil-fuelled steam generation at a beverage production site with a high-temperature heat pump delivering steam at up to around 120C. Conventional heat pumps cannot reach these temperatures, which is one reason industrial process heat remains hard to abate. A roughly 50kW thermal unit will run in hybrid mode alongside existing boilers on a clean-in-place cleaning process, chosen for its intermittent demand and low operational risk. Installation is targeted from late 2026, with modelling indicating around 30% lower energy costs and larger 500kW modules envisaged subsequently.

Sovereign Network Group

High Temperature Heat Pumps for Social Housing

Sovereign Network Group, with Mitsubishi Electric and Samsung, is testing high and medium temperature R290 air source heat pumps in occupied low-rise social housing, where conventional low-temperature units usually demand new radiators, new pipework and several days of intrusive work. Running flow temperatures of 55C to 75C allows existing emitters to stay in place. Across pilots covering 125 homes, 29 have received high-temperature units so far. Installations took two to three days rather than five to seven, retaining all radiators and 95% of pipework, with capital savings of £3,500 to £4,000 per home.

UK Power Networks

SHIELD (Smart Heat and Intelligent Energy in Low-Income Districts)

SHIELD captures waste heat from computing to warm social housing, installing HeatHubs – small in-home data centres – so heat generated by processing is recovered rather than vented. Delivered by a consortium including UK Power Networks, Thermify, Power Circle Projects and Essex County Council, the current phase is deploying 300 systems across East and South East England alongside rooftop solar and battery storage. An energy services company model removes upfront costs, with households paying a fixed £5.60 a month for heating. UK Power Networks reports household carbon reductions of over 90% and electricity bill savings of around 30%.

wienerberger UK & Ireland

Novel Heat Recovery at Warnham Brickworks

wienerberger has installed a heat recovery system at its Warnham brickworks, where seven dryers previously vented warm, moisture-laden air to the atmosphere. Designed by Heatcatcher, using heat pumps supplied by Seward, the £4.5m scheme condenses the exhaust and lifts it to 90C on renewable electricity before returning it to the drying chambers. Work was phased chamber by chamber with the factory operating, completing in Q4 2025. Dryer gas use has fallen by an average of 60% so far, with some cycles using none, and 1.74 million litres of mains water have been recovered for reuse in clay preparation.