Geothermal for heat network developers and utilities
You have aggregated the demand. Now you need the cheapest low-carbon source across the life of the network, not the cheapest one to build. TownRock Energy shows heat network developers, ESCos, utilities and community energy groups where geothermal really sits on their scheme.
Let us start with the objection (and counter it)
Geothermal has higher capex and more subsurface risk than the alternatives you are weighing. Both are true. However here’s the other side of the story.
- Lowest levelised cost of heat across the life of the network
- Low electrical consumption
- Boreholes designed to last 40+ years
- The subsurface works as an inter-seasonal store, as well as a supply
- No fuel logistics and no offtake agreement that can evaporate
- Subsurface risk quantified and managed
- A system that runs at high efficiency in the coldest weather, when demand peaks
- Community-owned schemes welcome. We project-managed one of Scotland’s first
We have drilled almost 40 exploratory and operational boreholes, we hold the UK’s only private-company Heat Access Agreement, and we helped forge the modern UK permitting landscape alongside the Environment Agency and the Mining Remediation Authority. We develop no schemes for our own account and take no commission from equipment suppliers, so the recommendation follows the project economics.
What you are actually buying
Documents that move the programme
Slide packs, reports and models to support the decision in front of you, written to hand to a funder or regulator without translation.
Our time in the room
Internal sessions with your team, and external meetings with funders, offtakers, regulators and stakeholders.
People on site
Experienced on-site geologists and engineers for surveys, drilling supervision, commissioning and operations.
Our Heat Network Expertise
A replicable mine water demonstrator
Project managed from technical feasibility through economic viability to development strategy for Scotland’s first mine water scheme in over fifteen years, across mixed-tenure existing housing.
Mines as a source and a thermal store
Subcontracted into a wider district energy feasibility to assess flooded mine workings as a low-grade heat source, a thermal store, or both, supplying an aerospace cluster.
Proof it runs, not just that it models
A 1.2 MWth mine water scheme operating since 2018 and the largest of its type in the UK. We built the world’s first mine water heat O&M programme around it, and auditing and re-drilling have since doubled generating capacity and halved maintenance costs.
We plug into your stage gates, not ours
Pre-FEED
Screening & due diligence
Concept designs, cashflow modelling and the visuals that go in front of decision-makers.
Commercialisation
FEED & permitting
Detailed design, permit applications, budget certainty ahead of FID.
Construction
Drilling & build
Drilling, testing, conditioning, end of well reporting, plant, energy centre and commissioning.
Operation
Revenue and O&M
Switch-on then monitoring, predictive maintenance and compliance.
What delivery actually looks like
An indicative programme from appointment to revenue, based on the UK commercial and permitting landscape.
Months 1 to 8
Pre-construction
Off-take agreements, site visits, existing infrastructure and subsurface assessment, permitting and environmental monitoring, subsurface modelling, borehole placement and design, surface plant and pipework design, soft procurement with initial supplier quotations, risk assessment.
Months 9 to 17
Subsurface construction
Stakeholder engagement, contractor procurement, continued monitoring, site preparation, rig mobilisation, drilling and borehole construction, borehole testing and conditioning, end of well report, demobilisation and site reinstatement.
Months 16 to 23
Surface plant
Trenching and pipework installation, energy centre construction, surface plant installation, full system commissioning, operations and maintenance plan finalised.
Month 24 onward
Operation
System switch-on and start of revenue generation. Monitoring, predictive maintenance, optimisation and regulatory compliance across the life of the asset.
Find out what is under your network
Send us an area of interest and a demand profile, and we will tell you whether the arithmetic works.