February 2012: Brent Council has recently issued a tender for a major new decentralised energy heat and power system in South Kilburn. The tender outlines that “It is envisaged that c. 2 000 new homes, a new school, a healthy living centre and new commercial units will be built in the area. This site will have a high proportion of new build, medium rise social housing blocks and as such is well suited to a heat network. London Borough of Brent is procuring the services of an energy service company to finance, design, build, manage and maintain a decentralised energy system which will provide heat with a combination of CHP and boilers to the new residential and non-residential units for a period of 40 years.”
The Council is looking to a company to install the necessary infrastructure including heat pipes to establish a linked network and to distribute the heat to each building via the network. The investment required to realise the scheme is estimated by the Council to be of the order of £67m.
Additional information on the project including a timeline for the approval for the contract are provided in the following Brent Council document.