Earlier this year, Energy UK held a roundtable in Westminster on clean heat with its members and the Minister, in partnership with HermeticaBlack. Following these discussions, its founder and Co-CEO Chris Holmes explains how heat networks could be transformational to the UK’s energy future – if their delivery is supported.
This article contains the views of our member organisation and does not necessarily reflect those of Energy UK.
Recent ministerial discussions have reinforced a growing sense of momentum behind heat and energy networks as a central pillar of the United Kingdom’s energy transition. With long-awaited consultations on the Warm Homes Plan (WHP) and zoning frameworks now underway, there is a clear opportunity to move beyond policy design and into meaningful delivery. The challenge, however, lies in ensuring that these frameworks go far enough to unlock investment, enable development, and deliver long-term, sustainable energy at scale.
Heat networks should be understood not simply as a climate solution, but as a foundational component of economic growth, energy security, and a just energy transition for both households and large energy users.
Heat networks are often framed primarily through the lens of decarbonisation. While their role in reducing carbon emissions remains critical, this perspective alone underestimates their broader system value. At a decentralised energy system level, policies that support heat networks are equally about strengthening energy security, ensuring fair and stable costs for consumers, and enabling housing and infrastructure development.
In this sense, heat networks should be understood not simply as a climate solution, but as a foundational component of economic growth, energy security, and a just energy transition for both households and large energy users.
One of the most pressing challenges raised during the roundtable discussions is the issue of access to, and cost of, energy capacity. This constraint is already affecting new towns, urban regeneration projects, and housing delivery more broadly.
Where developers face uncertainty or prohibitive costs in securing grid connections or energy infrastructure, projects are delayed or scaled back. By contrast, well-designed heat networks can provide cost-effective, compliant, and efficient energy capacity, helping to unlock these developments. This is particularly important in the context of the Government’s housing ambitions, where accelerating delivery is a national priority.
The current model, in which housebuilders are often required to finance small-scale, site-specific energy infrastructure, is increasingly difficult to justify. It can lead to fragmented systems, higher costs, and suboptimal outcomes for both consumers and the wider energy system. A more strategic, system-level approach enabled through zoning and coordinated infrastructure planning offers a more efficient alternative. By aggregating demand and delivering shared energy solutions, heat networks can achieve economies of scale and deliver more stable, long-term value.
For this to succeed, policy and funding frameworks must make it straightforward for projects, customers, and investors to say “yes”. This is particularly important in areas where there is significant potential for reusable or waste heat, which can underpin large, scalable networks with strong system-level benefits. However, there is also a need to strike the right balance. While zonal approaches should prioritise areas where shared infrastructure can deliver the greatest impact, they must not inadvertently crowd out viable individual solutions in locations where network deployment is less practical or cost-effective.
A phased approach may offer a pragmatic path forward. Initially, policy could focus on identifying and prioritising zones with the highest potential for shared energy benefits (such as dense urban areas or major regeneration sites) where coordinated infrastructure can unlock growth. Over time, this can be complemented by more flexible arrangements that allow for localised solutions where appropriate, ensuring that efficiency and cost-effectiveness remain central to decision-making.
Greater clarity and security around zoning frameworks and connection requirements will be essential.
Ultimately, the key question is how to translate policy ambition into real-world delivery. Moving from “good theory” to investable projects requires a step change in certainty and confidence. In particular, greater clarity and security around zoning frameworks and connection requirements will be essential. Investors need assurance that projects will reach sufficient scale, secure demand, and operate within a stable regulatory environment. Without this, the risk profile remains too high to unlock the level of capital required.
This is especially important given the role that infrastructure investors and government funding can play in enabling wider development. By taking on the delivery and operation of energy networks, these investors can reduce upfront burdens on developers, allowing housing and regeneration projects to proceed more quickly. In turn, this supports broader economic objectives, including job creation and GDP growth, as well as the delivery of new homes at scale.
Encouragingly, there are signs that both strategic direction and policy intent are beginning to align. The focus now must shift towards implementation. This means not only refining policy frameworks but also ensuring that they are accompanied by the practical mechanisms needed to support delivery – whether through funding structures, regulatory clarity, or market signals that incentivise investment.
The opportunity is clear. Heat and integrated energy networks, supported by effective zoning and enabling policy, can deliver efficient energy capacity, enhance energy security, reduce emissions, and provide fair, stable costs to consumers. Crucially, they can also act as a catalyst for housing delivery and economic growth.
The next phase of the energy transition will be defined not by the ambition of our plans, but by our ability to deliver them. Moving from design to deployment, unlocking investment, building infrastructure, and realising the intended benefits of these systems will be essential. If successful, this will not only transform how we heat our buildings, but also how we enable sustainable growth across the United Kingdom.
HermeticaBlack specialises in the investment, development and asset management of infrastructure and energy projects. Read more about the company and follow Chris on LinkedIn.
