Maximising the potential for heat networks to help decarbonise the UK

Challenge 

The Department for Energy, Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) is the government body leading the charge towards a carbon neutral future. Formerly the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), it is responsible for managing the UK’s energy network and developing net zero policies.

A key part of DESNZ’s and the government’s net zero delivery plan is the expansion of heat networks. Heat networks (sometimes known as district heating), are systems of underground pipes that carry hot water from a central source to consumers. They can cover both large and local areas and are renowned for being a low-carbon solution for heating and cooling. This is because they avoid the need for individual boilers or electric heaters in every building. 

Heat networks have already been successful and are common in European countries such as Sweden and Denmark. But despite successful pilot schemes in cities such as Bristol and Leeds, they are relatively unknown in the UK. DESNZ wanted to change that. The department wanted to create a policy that would raise awareness of heat networks and support local authorities to implement them. 

However, DESNZ faced challenges in doing this. It was a newly formed department and did not have a unified strategy in place to help bring various internal teams together across the Heat Network Zoning Transition Project. This made it difficult to get everyone in the same room and to agree on the best approaches.

To address these challenges, we worked with DESNZ to build a strategy to help raise internal and external awareness, create alignment in the department and build confidence in the opportunities heat networks can provide.

Approach 

The important first step in this project was helping DESNZ develop a long-term strategy. Through a discovery process and engaging with stakeholders, we worked together and created a clear plan and vision. This plan defined an end-to-end service vision for heat networks and created a common understanding of what success looked like.

Understanding user needs

The first step in the end-to-end service vision focussed on raising awareness of heat network zones for users in local authorities. To do this, a user-centred approach was key. This involved meeting sustainability managers working in local authorities to find out what they knew and understood about heat networks. These individuals will play a crucial role in implementing and expanding heat networks. As such, these conversations allowed us to build a picture of their current level of knowledge of them. 

From these conversations, it was clear that sustainability managers felt they lacked a direct channel to find the latest information on heat networks. Many specifically highlighted they didn't have information which could help them prepare and take action within their organisations. At the same time, they needed details on how heat networks can be used to help local councils reach their own strategic climate goals.

Creating a people-first solution

This work meant we had a clear idea of what sustainability managers felt they were missing. Building on this, we designed a prototype of a digital information service and tested this with the target user base. The idea behind the platform is that it would be a central, online location where local authorities and managers could access all the information they require on heat networks.

What made the prototype we developed unique and user friendly was its visual aspects. To help users get a better understanding of how they could implement and benefit from heat networks, we incorporated the prototype with geospatial data. This meant that when people went on the information service, they would have access to a geospatial map dashboard which allowed them to visualise the location of potential heat network zones, helping bring them to life for users.

We also developed a set of content principles and recommendations for the department. We created these to help staff understand how to produce the right content for the right users and how to demystify heat networks for their different key audiences.

New ways of working

To address the challenge of uniting DESNZ’s disparate teams, aligning them all with a shared aim was key. We did this by bringing people together from across the department to collaborate and develop a five-year roadmap for the new platform. This included hosting sessions to co-create a new user journey for building owners who could be required to connect to a heat network in the future. We also oversaw cross-departmental collaboration around dependencies, risks and to identify shared opportunities.

Impact 

The project was a success and the impacts were felt immediately across DESNZ. Its overall impact has been the value of service design to help the department focus its resources and align internally, with a clear digital strategy and end-to-end service vision.

In addition, user centred content design has helped to provide audiences with the right visual and written information in a way which is clear, easy to understand and accessible. Helping to demystify heat networks in order to scale them across the UK

At the same time, DESNZ independently built on our joint work as a result of having a clear vision and long-term strategy. The department produced video case studies sharing real life examples of what it’s like to benefit from heat networks to support this. The case studies included this video case study of Maureen Lillywhite, a resident in Leeds who saved money on her energy bills by living on a heat network. 

The new ways of working we developed with DESNZ have also had a huge impact on how its teams operate. The department and its employees have taken the new approach on to other projects, working much more closely to align, unite and deliver on its objectives.