Notes
http://chp.decc.gov.uk/cms/cost-of-district-heating/
Heat Network costs
The flow and return pipework costs alone can vary significantly from approximately £500-£1,100 per metre and depend on a range of factors including:
Ground conditions (soft or hard dig), Other buried services, Number of bends, Method used for joining pipework (clamped or welded). The heat density is key to making heating networks viable. For example the majority of housing stock in the UK is typically heated water based space heating and could potentially be connect to district heating schemes. However there are few distict heating networks in the UK and other countries such as Demark have developed schemes very successfully. Housing stock is one of the key differences between many of the countries that have successfully deployed large scale district heating networks and the UKm, in these other countries there are a greater proportion of flats than in the UK, increasing the heat density and lowering network cost for the same number of customers supplied.
Heating station costs
The client interface of the district heating system is discussed in the district heating technology section. The cost of the system interface will vary depending on type and the size of the heat load to be served. A typical domestic hydraulic interface unit (HIU) might cost in the order of £2,000 with installation and including a heat meter. These costs of a client interface for industrial and steam applications would be significantly more and would vary accourding to the client and network operators needs.
Operational Costs
The key operational costs for a district heating network include:
Network pumping costs, Billing administration (meter reading, billing, debt collecting), Network maintenance (this would typically be expected to be limited), Network interface maintenance (i.e. HIU), this may be paid for by the heat customer, Fuel costs, CHP/heat source maintenances costs and operation costs.