Colchester Borough Council is providing support for residents, businesses, and communities. The government has announced that England has returned to Plan A. You should continue to protect yourself and others. Find further guidance on GOV.UK.
Contents
The Council is in the process of creating an innovative low carbon heat network, that will provide energy to homes, commercial space, and leisure facilities.
Many of the Council’s estate already have solar photovoltaic (PV) panels installed on them, including the Crematorium, Leisure World and Shrub End Depot. The Council will review options for installing solar PV on other assets going forward so that we can use greener energy in our buildings.
The Council is also constructing an innovative low carbon heat network in collaboration with Colchester Amphora Energy Ltd(CAEL), an energy company owned by the Council, for use in the new Northern Gateway development. The heat network will provide low carbon heating for residential, commercial and leisure purposes and is expected to be completed and operational by 2024. The system works by extracting heat from water stored in rocks (known as aquifers) and using this to heat buildings.
The picture below shows some initial boreholes that were drilled to test how much water could be abstracted from the aquifers in the ground.
Page last reviewed: 9 July 2021