The potential of the heat recovery from urban sewage wastewater for use in residential and commercial buildings

The pressing need of implementing climate change act and a commitment to increase renewable energy has led to the identification of number of secondary heat sources in UK (1). This paper focuses on heat recovery from urban sewage wastewater - a secondary heat source. The heat that is added by the consumer when it is heated, used and dumped in the sewer systems. The technique is not new and have been successfully implemented in many cities around the world with many others considering its deployment. In UK there is a growing interest to explore this new technology specially after the successful sewage heat recovery demonstration project at Borders College, Galashiels, Scotland - a joint venture between Scottish Water Horizons & SHARC Energy Systems (2). However, further experimental research is needed to build the evidence base, replicate and de-risk the concept elsewhere in the UK. The Home Energy 4 Tomorrow (HE4T) project at London South Bank University (LSBU) was created to address this evidence gap. The current paper is third in series of output on wastewater heat recovery in UK and is motivated by the need to introduce the research done to the industries where the data pertaining to sewage wastewater heat recovery is scarce and there is a lack of understanding of the flow behaviour of urban sewage. In this paper we present some measured data from a location in London, monthly variations in sewage wastewater temperature and the heat potential along with policy implications for UK heat strategy.