In 2019 Milton Keynes City Council made a commitment to become Carbon Neutral by 2030 and Carbon Negative by 2050. The scale of planned growth in Milton Keynes represents a challenging increase in demand for the supply of energy for heating, electricity and transport whilst also meeting the Council’s wider climate ambitions. Heat decarbonisation of buildings, principally focussed on the development and optimisation of heat networks, is a key pillar in the Council’s sustainability strategy and Pathway to Net Zero document in line with Government policy in this area. 

Via previously commissioned feasibility studies, the Council’s technical consultants concluded that the implementation of a city-wide heat network was viable and the most effective method of delivering heat decarbonisation across the City recommending further investigation into the opportunity to provide waste heat from the MKWRP. 

See here the Heat Network Feasibility Study

The Council have recently undertaken a business case to assess the technical and commercial viability explored of extracting heat and power from Milton Keynes Waste Recovery Park (MKWRP), an Advanced Thermal Treatment Facility in ownership of the council. This opportunity could allow the Council and others to utilise heat that would otherwise be absorbed into the atmosphere and wasted and supplement other sources of low and zero carbon heat to diversify and build resilience in a city-wide heat network. 

To support these activities the Council has developed a Heat Network Policy and is supportive of heat network activity across the City in support of it’s wider climate ambitions.