Southampton has struggled with seriously poor air quality. When they looked into the cause, they found that it was because of the high level of CO2 emissions from local cars, heavy goods vehicles, ships entering the port and cargo trucks.
With the problem and causes identified, the Southampton City Council (SCC) partnered up with ENGIE to pioneer a new project called the Southampton District Energy Scheme (SDES). This innovative solution would supply heat, chilled water, and electricity from sustainable sources to commercial and residential energy consumers across the city.
The Southampton Geothermal Heating Company (SGHC) is the entity that has been pushing the project forward over the last 25 years. It now serves more than 45 energy users in both the public and private sectors. Today, SGHC can proudly say that they save 10,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions each year by using heat from a large-scale combined heat and power (CHP) plant, supplemented by geothermal energy and conventional boilers.