Tag: Networks

  • Heat networks could help institutions meet net zero targets

    Heat networks could help institutions meet net zero targets

    Heat networks enable heat and hot water to be distributed from a central ‘energy centre’, via mainly underground pipes, to multiple buildings.

    Boiler systems in connected buildings would be replaced with new infrastructure, to enable circulation of heat from the network. The energy centre becomes the source of the heat supply.

    Heat networks have a long history — with the first networks being tested nearly 150 years ago. Distribution of heat from a centralised heat source was taken forward in New York city in the late nineteenth century. In the UK, heat networks were used in blocks of flats in the 1960s and 70s. Denmark was one of the first countries to start using heat networks on a wide scale, in response to the oil crisis in 1973. Currently, heat networks are commonly used in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe and in cities across the USA and Canada. There are around 14,000 heat networks in the UK with many being campus-style, providing heat to groups of social housing or hospital/NHS campuses.

    Modern heat networks can utilise sources of low carbon heat. These include energy from waste facilities, geothermal sources, solar thermal arrays, air and ground source heat pumps and data centres.

    Participating in a heat network is likely to be more environmentally friendly and, in some cases, more cost-effective than maintaining older, inefficient gas-fired heating systems.

    Funding available

    It’s estimated that fifty per cent of buildings in the UK are located in areas suitable for the construction of a heat network, which currently supply around 2 to 3 per cent of the UK’s heat. The Committee on Climate Change predicts that in order to meet net zero targets (with around 20 per cent of heat supply being from heat networks), it is estimated that investment will need to be around £60 to £80 billion by 2050.

    The government has confirmed its support for the sector, as re-iterated at November’s Association for Decentralised Energy Conference by Miatta Fahnbulleh, Minister for Energy Consumers. The government has set a target for at least 18 per cent of the UK’s heat demand to be met from heat networks by 2050. Over £600 million of government funding has been allocated to develop and improve heat networks.

    The government’s recently published “Clean Power 2030” action plan sets out that the national wealth fund will make available an expanded suite of financial instruments, as part of investment in heat networks and other clean energy sectors.

    The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero already significantly supports the sector via capital grant funding from the Green Heat Network Fund. Education institutions have a range of grant options available to them. One example is the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (via its delivery body, Salix Finance), being a fund dedicated to supporting energy efficiency and decarbonisation initiatives.

    Financial support for heat networks is supplemented by the work of other bodies such as the Heat Networks Industry Council, which is a joint industry and Government forum that aims to grow the heat network sector.

    Taken together, it is clear that there is genuine ambition to ensure that heat networks play a key role in helping the UK meet its net zero ambitions.

    Notable heat network developments

    A number of major heat network projects are underway, including the hugely ambitious South Westminster Area Network (referred to as “SWAN”), which will supply low carbon heating to the Houses of Parliament, the National Gallery and large areas of Whitehall, and the Leeds PIPES heat network, which connects to over 3000 dwellings.

    The existence of these projects, and numerous others, is evidence of a growing trend in the emergence of heat networks as a major contributor to the UK’s net zero ambitions.

    Campus based networks

    Heat networks can work well on campus-style facilities. Given the location of the projects mentioned above, city-based higher education institutions should also consider whether it is feasible for their buildings to connect to a heat network, and whether a heat network is planned in their area.

    There are a number of recent adopters of heat networks in the education sector, including the University of Liverpool, the University of Bradford and the University of Warwick, with many more universities considering becoming heat off-takers.

    Heat networks present academic institutions with an exciting opportunity to forge the way in supporting both new sources of heat, and decarbonising heat in urban areas.

    Regulation matters

    Aside from regulations that govern billing and metering, the heat network sector is not regulated. This, however, will change – the heat networks market framework regulations 2025 (currently in draft) is to come into force in stages over the next 12 months.

    Future regulation is subject to ongoing consultation, which includes consideration of how different groups of consumers are to be protected, and specific arrangements on standards of conduct and billing transparency.

    In particular, the proposed regulations do not specifically refer to a ‘supplier of last resort’ regime, which would enable a state-nominated entity to continue the operation of a heat network where the relevant operator had become insolvent. We understand that Ofgem and the government are considering how this would work, given the complexity of arranging for the ownership transfer of infrastructure and capital assets. We await further developments on this.

    The scheme rules of the Heat Trust, which operates to protect the interests of domestic and micro-business customers of heat networks, partly informed the content of forthcoming regulations. The Heat Trust’s voluntary scheme is intended to establish common standards of heat supply and associated customer service (with standards of service comparable to those required by Ofgem of electricity and gas suppliers). We therefore anticipate robust standards to be introduced within the regulations, for a wider group of consumers.

    Connecting to a heat network involves technical aspects relating to design, maintenance, service standards, and availability of a ‘green’ heat supply. Legal support is essential in navigating new networks as well as specialised technical support. For example, procurement risks, design and delivery risks, real estate and contamination issues, constructions issues, particularly around connection work and secondary side works, exclusivity arrangements and “change in law” provisions given forthcoming regulatory requirements.

    Mills & Reeve advises a number of Universities and other bodies on their participation in heat networks.

    If you are considering participating in a heat network and would like to speak to us about how we can help, please do contact any member of the M&R team.

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  • Global Networks Amplify Local Controversies – GlobalHigherEd

    Global Networks Amplify Local Controversies – GlobalHigherEd

    This entry is also available at Inside Higher Ed.

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    What are the implications for universities and their governing boards/trustees/councils of becoming increasingly embedded in global networks?

    There are many implications, including the ability to be interconnected with flows of knowledgeable people (aka human capital), ideas, money, technologies, and so on. These global networks also ensure that international collaborative research and co-authorship occurs, a phenomenon explored on a number of levels in these fascinating reports:

    Pause for a moment, too, and explore this fascinating visualization by Olivier H. Beauchesne of indexable co-authorship between 2005-2009:

    What political boundaries, if any, do you notice in this empirically-based visualization of collaborative activity?

    It’s no surprise if you read the reports flagged above that governments and funding councils across the worlds are enamored with facilitating more international collaborative research. Why? It is perceived to enhance the quality of the knowledge produced, the ability to address key global challenges, and that collaborative output (e.g., articles, reports, books) can generate relatively higher interest and impacts.

    When I examine the above graphic, I think of all of my colleagues at the universities I’ve been educated and have worked at – the University of British Columbia, the University of Bristol, the National University of Singapore, Sciences Po (albeit just for one year), and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. At all of these universities I was (and am, in the case of UW-Madison) surrounded by colleagues who collaborate with colleagues in other universities, national and regional (e.g., European) research councils, firms, government agencies, international organizations, etc., all of which are scattered across the planet. Of course there is variation in researchers’ individual collaborative geographies, but there is evidence of a progressive deepening and extension of global networks, and this is backed up by bibliometric research on the basis of Thomson Reuters and Elsevier data.

    From a broader perspective, it’s worth noting that these globalizing networks are structurally supported by the operation of segmented academic labour markets that are increasingly supra-national in nature, the digitalization of research infrastructures (think of research databases, publication platforms, the Global Research Council, ORCID, etc.), university internationalization strategies, global production networks (value chains), open access online higher education media, etc.

    Now when things go well, universities benefit, as do the economies and societies (both territorialized) they are most closely associated with. Think, for example, of the myriad of ways the local, regional and indeed national economy benefited when one UW-Madison faculty member established the largest medical records company (Epic Systems) in the world, with offices in Verona WI, the Netherlands, and Singapore. When things go well, universities see increased attention from the higher ed media, and the business/economy-focused media (given the critically important role of universities in constructing vibrant knowledge-based economies). Said universities see higher positioning in world university rankings, increased flows of international fee-paying students, more diversity and competition in the make up of job applicant pools, more spin-off companies with genuinely global perspectives, greater competitiveness in extramural funding competitions, and so on.

    As with many phenomenon, the existence of vibrant global networks that run through universities is a double-edged sword. They have the capacity to, if things go poorly, propel near instantaneous and surprisingly durable echoes and reverberations that span out across global space. Information flows, like water – it can’t be suppressed. Epistemic communities care little for the complex causes of major budget cuts, the detailed factors underlying poor leadership, nor the diverse causes of governance ineptitude. These global epistemic communities, supported by mediatized services (e.g., via Twitter, Facebook, email), pay negligible if nil attention to detailed rationale and nuances of controversial policy shifts (e.g., about tenure and layoff provisions). These increasingly global epistemic communities treasure, above all, freedom of thought to produce innovative forms of knowledge in the search for truth, clear and evident autonomy from the interventive impulses of the state, church, society, and governance systems that are proactively supportive vs repressive/micro-management in inclination.

    Unfortunately, while higher education, as well as the associated knowledge economy, is going global, higher education politics with respect to budgets and university governance (at the board/council/trustee level) is at risk of regressing, of becoming more local, regional, hyper-politicized, and ideological. Think, for example, about the messy local/provincial politics shaping key aspects of the University of British Columbia‘s ongoing leadership/governance crisis, or an evident regional agenda to mess about (a ‘solution in search of a problem’?) with one of the foundational principles of academic freedom – tenure – that has built the University of Wisconsin (System), over a century plus, into what it is.

    Going global brings with it amazing opportunities. Going global is a necessary developmental agenda for universities that seek to excel and build resilience in the 21st century. Going global is an integral part of supporting of regional knowledge-based economic development strategies, something I learned much about via colleagues on an OECD mission. But, hand in hand with going global is a global eye on the local.

    Are those governing universities, and provincial/state higher education systems, as aware as they should be about the global networks that play a fundamental role in sustaining the vibrancy, effectiveness, and stature of their universities? If not, they should be, for local controversies and tensions are also simultaneously global in nature – they reverberate, at the speed of light, through global networks.

    Kris Olds

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