Scottish Water project hailed as beacon of collaboration by First Minister

TECHNOLOGY UPDATE

Scottish Water’s low-carbon district heating partnership with local and national government has been commended as “a great demonstration of how we can work collaboratively” by Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

The Sterling District Heating Network is sited at Scottish Water’s wastewater treatment plant at Forthsidei will provide heat for a number of public buildings including a school as well as football club, Stirling Albion’s, stadium.

In what the developers claim as a UK first the £6m project will use biogas-fired combined heated power (CHP) generation and heat pump technology. The CHP generator providing electricity to run the wastewater treatment while the heat pump will recover heat from the wastewater add to the hot water from the CHP plant to feed the district heating network.

During a recent tour of the site, Sturgeon said: “I am proud of the bold, innovative and world-leading policies we are implementing to address the climate crisis we face. The Stirling District Heat Network project is a fantastic example of this.”

Scottish Water subsidiary, Scottish Water Horizons has invested £3m in the project and with Stirling Council has invested £1m with £2m coming from the Scottish Government’s Low Carbon Infrastructure Transition Programme which is funded jointly by the Scottish Government and the European Regional Development Fund.