Applied Energy

Wastewater Network Heat Mapping:

Using wastewater for heating and/or cooling buildings is one of the most exciting opportunities available for cities to easily take big steps in stopping fossil fuel use and reducing carbon emissions, saving precious drinking water, improving air quality, reducing noise pollution and do all this very quickly.
Wastewater heat recycling is achieved by simply using infrastructure and energy that cities already have, but using them in a different way. It’s not new. Europe and Japan started doing this in the 1980’s and there are now estimated to be more than 1000 wastewater heat recycling systems in operation around the world.

In the UK, ~20% of every home’s energy is used to make hot water, and this water mostly flows ‘down the drain’ after use, carrying all this heat energy with it. This heat energy is donated into the sewers by citizens every day, for free! So wastewater networks are collection systems for all the free waste heat that citizens everyday send ‘down their drains’.
Wastewater utilities have this heat, but it is just flushed away. Our buildings and industries can use heat energy, but these sectors don’t know where or how much wastewater heat is available within the city, and policy planners typically don’t know about wastewater heat recycling, so they simply ignore it in their planning processes.

For a sustainable world, we need to stop this massive heat energy waste and recycle wastewater heat via heatpumps to replace fossil fuels which are currently being burnt to generate heat.

The key to recycling this heat energy: bringing people together and getting them talking. Wastewater network heat maps are like energy treasure maps for a city and are the information bridge between the sectors.

Download our wastewater network heat mapping brochure here: https://www.appliedenergy.co.nz/heatingcooling-planning.html