Four million homes are currently off mains gas, with many relying on expensive, higher carbon alternatives. While these households would benefit from fuel savings and reduced carbon emissions by switching to low carbon heat technologies such as heat pumps, increased electricity demand will put a significant strain on the national grid.
Recognising this, in May 2012 the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) launched a business research competition, in partnership with the Technology Strategy Board, called the Advanced Heat Competition – a UK initiative for manufacturers to develop a product solution, which will deliver stored energy draw off at peak times.
Despite stiff competition, Heatrae Sadia and Cambridge Design Partnership successfully reached Phase 2, having effectively demonstrated product innovation, feasibility, peak energy saving performance and domestic commercialisation objectives in Phase 1. Phase 2 is now underway with a grant of £331,000 being made available to produce prototypes and field trials by the end of March 2014.
Alan Clarke, technical support manager at Heatrae Sadia, said, ‘Working alongside Cambridge Design Partnership, we have developed an original concept in thermal storage, which can be installed in new build and easily retrofit. In fact, we have already filed for a patent to ensure we can deliver our innovative idea to market.’
James Baker, partner and senior engineer at Cambridge Design Partnership, commented, ‘We are delighted to have teamed up with Heatrae Sadia to develop an innovative system that delivers real benefits. We had a timely vision of how we could integrate technology with market need and produce a novel new concept for the industry. The system will pull together many of the low carbon technologies that are becoming popular, and enable better efficiencies through integration at system level.’
