1 October 2012: The ‘Pimlico District Heating Undertaking (PDHU)’ was one of the many sites available to be viewed by the public on Open House Day over the past weekend.
As CityWest Homes website sets out “PDHU is owned by Westminster City Council and managed by CityWest Homes. It provides clean, safe and reliable energy to approximately 3,200 properties and 56 local businesses. It was the first of its kind in Britain and started life in a pump house using waste heat from Battersea Power Station to provide heating and hot water to one local housing estate.
The system was upgraded in 2006 with a £6.9million boiler plant added to the system which will be able to heat an additional 1,400 homes. This will lead to further savings on nearly 3,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year – the equivalent of taking 1,000 cars a year off the roads of London. The upgrade was paid for by the Community Energy Programme. It includes two combined heat and power engines and has been built on the site of the original pump house.”
As a recent Arup research project highlights there are hopes that PDHU could at some time in the near future, connect to the nearby Whitehall District Heating Scheme.