Upcoming regulations, including HNTAS, will require improved performance from communal and district heat networks, as well as ambient loop systems, with a mandate for regular data reporting throughout each year of operation. It is more important than ever to ensure that you can accurately capture detailed data from your system to monitor and enhance performance, and ultimately, to comply with the regulations.

A 4th gen heat network is a system that delivers heat energy via a closed loop of pipework; heat interface units are then typically used to distribute heat to consumers.

Use Pinpoint to analyse heat loss, uncontrolled flow, volume weighted average return and flow temperatures and consumption.

An ambient loop network is a system that sends low-temperature water around a group of buildings, where small heat pumps at each customer connection upgrade this thermal energy to provide heating or cooling as needed.

Use Pinpoint to analyse the efficiency of heat pumps along with temperatures, flow rates and consumption.

The Heat Network Optimisation Guide is a step by step guide to assessing a heat network, identifying problems, implementing quick wins and planning longer term improvements that require more capital investment. Heat Network Optimisation Guide recommends working from the consumer connection back to the energy centre as the most effective way to optimise a network.

Verify heat network performance with real-time data before residents move in, or when adopting a network into your portfolio. Check agreed site-specific KPIs including return temperatures or heat losses, or minimum technical standards required by regulation.

Hold your supply chain to account, and use data to ensure improvements to be made within any defects liability period.

Even where networks are well designed and commissioned before residents move in, performance tends to drift over time. It is not uncommon for the cost of delivered heat to double in just a few years on unwatched networks.

Use Guru Pinpoint to help analyse problems and diagnose the causes before they are reported by residents. Understanding where and why problems occur helps target maintenance visits and helps them go more smoothly on the day.

Real-time data can be used to verify repairs or changes immediately to reduce the need for future call-outs.

You now have more data than ever of your existing networks. Use consumption and performance data to design and plan your next project. The more networks on Pinpoint the more data you have to benchmark against.

Mildmay is a development-led network in Shoreditch, East London with 139 residential connections, a hospital, and a church, constructed in 2014 by Notting Hill Genesis. Guru Systems technology was installed at this site as part of the HNES Demonstrator programme in partnership with specialist engineering consultancy FairHeat and supported by housing association Notting Hill Genesis.