The ground just a few metres beneath our feet maintains a stable temperature all year-round, and our ground source heat networks mean homes like yours can take advantage of that.
It’s an innovative means of delivering clean heat to your home from underground. And as well as being simple and reliable, it’s an environmentally friendly way to heat your home.
A series of vertical boreholes is drilled into the ground, and they transfer the underground heat to homes via a network of underground pipes. Heat pumps then exchange the ambient heat for your heating and hot water.
There’s no combustion involved, so only clean heat is transferred to your home. The only noticeable difference for households is that the boiler is swapped for a ground source heat pump or a heat interface unit.
These are concealed pipes installed vertically into the ground, which enable the continuous absorption and transfer of heat from the earth to your home.
Decentralised network
Instead of a traditional gas boiler, your home has a small ground source heat pump.
Centralised network
Instead of a traditional gas boiler, your home is connected to a larger heat pump nearby and you have a heat interface unit in your home.
While these heat pumps run on electricity, because they can use heat from the earth it makes heating your home extremely efficient.
Heating our homes contributes around one-fifth of the UK’s total carbon emissions. Where traditional heating uses fossil fuels, clean heat uses locally sourced renewable energy from underground.
Ground source networks can be used for cooling too. Some of our networks have this functionality, where the heating cycle is run in reverse to cool your home.
Ground source heat plays an important role in reducing carbon emissions. They’re a great solution compared with clean energy sources like air source heat pumps because they generate heat much more efficiently and therefore achieve lower carbon emissions. With the increasing focus on climate change and reducing carbon emissions, this not only benefits the environment but also adds value to properties.
