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Progress 5 min read

UK heat network upgrades: 94 systems get funding to cut wasted heat

Ninety-four heat networks have secured funding for leaky-pipe, insulation and control upgrades. Here is what the work could change for 10,000 residents.

Kieran Simpson 17 Jul 2026 Updated 17 Jul 2026

Ninety-four heat networks across England and Wales have secured £15.6 million for repairs and efficiency work. More than 10,000 residents, as well as hospitals and charities, are expected to benefit from upgrades to pipes, insulation and heating controls.

Some of the most useful clean-heating work begins with a leak. Hot water leaves a boiler room or energy centre, travels through ageing pipework and loses part of its heat before it reaches a flat, ward or office. The network then has to burn more fuel or use more electricity to deliver the same warmth.

The latest Heat Network Efficiency Scheme awards are meant to reduce those losses. The work is less visible than opening a new energy centre, but it goes to the part of the system that residents already depend on.

The work begins with old pipes and poor controls

A heat network supplies heating, hot water or cooling to several homes or buildings from a shared source. The source may be a gas boiler, heat pump, combined heat and power plant, waste-heat supply or another system. Pipes carry the heat to each building, where heat exchangers or interface units transfer it into the property.

Age and design can make that journey inefficient. Insulation deteriorates, underground leaks are difficult to find and some communal systems run at higher temperatures than they need. Old interface units can also give residents poor control or fail to transfer heat efficiently.

The funded work includes replacing leaky pipes, insulating pipework and changing interface units inside homes. In practical terms, that should mean less energy is lost between the source and the radiator, while residents gain more control over the heat they receive.

That distinction matters because changing the source alone does not repair the distribution system. A low-carbon energy centre connected to a wasteful network can still use more energy than necessary. Equally, improving the pipes and controls of an existing gas-fired network can reduce consumption before a cleaner heat source is installed.

Salford, Solihull and Camden show where the money is going

The £15.6 million award is spread across 94 networks rather than one national construction project. The published examples show how local the work can be.

In Salford, £1.2 million will improve the heating systems serving three high-rise blocks built in the 1960s. Five networks in Solihull, serving 484 residents, have been awarded £2.1 million. Two networks in Camden will receive another £2.1 million for work expected to improve service for 358 residents.

Those projects sit in buildings where replacing the whole heating arrangement would be disruptive and expensive. Residents also have less freedom than a household with its own boiler to change supplier or install a different system. The condition of the shared pipes, plant and controls therefore has a direct effect on comfort, reliability and cost.

The national total is large enough to show a repeated infrastructure problem, but the results will be local. One block may need pipe replacement; another may need better insulation, metering or controls. The useful comparisons will come from the energy each network used before the work, what it uses afterwards and whether the service improves for the people connected to it.

New networks are being built around cleaner heat

The same government announcement included £25 million for four projects developing newer, lower-carbon systems through the Green Heat Network Fund. These awards are doing a different job from the efficiency scheme: they are helping to build or extend networks around cleaner sources of heat.

King's Cross in London has been awarded £8.6 million for the next phase of a heating and cooling network that already serves more than 1,700 homes and 44 buildings using heat pumps. In Atherstone, Warwickshire, £2.2 million will support a network designed to take waste heat from an energy-from-waste facility and supply heating to 1,700 homes.

Waste heat is valuable only when a usable customer is close enough to receive it. A factory, data centre or energy facility may release heat throughout the year, while homes need much more of it in winter than summer. Pipe routes, storage, backup plant, building connections and long-term contracts decide whether the source becomes dependable heating rather than an attractive diagram.

Bristol offers an operating example. Its harbour heat pump supplies a district network with heating and hot water equivalent to the needs of 2,500 homes. The national awards now test whether more places can combine a cleaner source with pipes and controls that deliver the heat efficiently.

Heat-network customers gained new protections this year

The physical upgrades arrive during a wider change in how heat networks are governed. Ofgem began regulating the sector in January 2026, bringing rules on service, reliability, billing, vulnerable customers and fair pricing to a market that had not previously been regulated like gas and electricity supply.

Ofgem estimates that more than 14,000 heat networks operate across Great Britain. They range from a communal boiler serving one block of flats to district systems linking homes, offices, public buildings and industrial heat sources.

Operators and suppliers now have authorisation conditions to follow, and relevant networks must provide registration information by 26 January 2027. Residents can also use Citizens Advice, Consumer Scotland and the Energy Ombudsman for advice and redress.

Regulation cannot insulate a pipe or replace a failing interface unit. Capital funding cannot by itself make bills clear or complaints easier to resolve. Together, however, the two changes address parts of the same problem: heat-network customers need both functioning infrastructure and a service they can challenge when it falls short.

The award is not yet the saving

The 94-network figure records projects selected for funding, not 94 completed upgrades. The government says the work will lower costs, but the size and timing of any bill reduction will depend on the condition of each network, the work delivered, energy prices and the way costs are passed through to customers.

Carbon savings will vary for the same reason. Stopping heat loss should reduce the energy needed to supply a building, but the emissions result depends on the fuel or electricity used by the heat source. A network still relying on gas will have a different footprint from one drawing on heat pumps or recovered industrial heat.

The evidence to look for after construction is straightforward: measured heat loss, energy input for each unit of heat delivered, outages, maintenance costs, customer bills and complaints. Publishing those before-and-after figures would show which repairs worked well enough to repeat elsewhere.

The positive change is already more specific than a national heat-network ambition. Named systems have money for physical work, and residents in Salford, Solihull, Camden and dozens of other places have a route to better equipment. Whether that becomes warmer homes and lower waste will be decided in plant rooms, service tunnels and the bills that arrive after the work is finished.

Sources

Data checked

Checked on 17 July 2026 against the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero funding announcement, the Heat Network Efficiency Scheme and Green Heat Network Fund guidance, and Ofgem's current heat-network regulation pages. Review after the funded projects publish completion or measured performance data, the next scheme award, or a material change to heat-network consumer rules.