District Heating

Global leaders in pioneering heating projects IWTM's products have been installed on some of the most prestigious UK district heating projects, taking center stage in water-engineering innovation. IWTM has been featured in Bunhill 2 with waste heat being used from the London Underground, and the village-wide renewable retrofit of Swaffham Prior.

Return on investment L&Q produced a business case for retrofitting Barking Riverside with an IWTM industrial 500 unit. A calculated return on investment at 3.25 years, and an operating cost saving of 82% when compared to the legacy chemical treatment were obviously important. But it was benefits to system reliability with reduced part failure, fewer service interruptions, reduced system downtime (due to repairs) and lower maintenance costs that helped with the award. Connecting networks on phased projects such as Barking can also create huge issues when differing water qualities mix. Chemical-free principles treat the root cause of corrosion as well as the symptoms, meaning it offers a comparable water quality across all phases – helping avoid delays and expensive remediation works.

Water quality standards VDI2035’s chemical-free approach was specifically recognised in the Design Guide as the best solution for large volume networks and for systems with low and intermittent flow. Our solution achieves VDI2035 water quality standards which are one of the most stringent in Europe and we were instrumental in getting these recognised in the CIBSE CP1 Heat Network Code of Conduct and in the CIBSE Heat Network Design Guide. Both Bunhill and Swaffham Prior (a retrofit and a new build project) were affected by low and intermittent flow as they were waiting for customer take up and connection, meaning they were well suited to our chemical-free approach. This advantage over traditional chemical water treatment ensured greater corrosion protection of the networks whilst not in full circulation.