Durham County Council has gone out to tender with a contract worth an estimated £45 million for the provision of low carbon heat from mine water to the proposed Seaham Garden Village development via a District Heating Network.
Image: Coal Authority's Dawdon mine water treatment scheme
The site of the proposed development is adjacent to the Coal Authority's Dawdon mine water treatment scheme - just one of 75 mine water treatment schemes across the UK that the Coal Authority operates.
The Coal Authority is currently advancing plans to convert the UK's abandoned coal mines from a liability to an asset of strategic importance to the UK. In total the schemes release circa 100MW of geothermal energy to the atmosphere that could be used for heating purposes.
The Dawdon scheme, which pumps up to 150 litres of mine water per second to the surface for treatment, protects vital drinking water abstraction from Durham Magnesian Limestone. Each year the scheme treats approximately 2,200 million litres of mine water.
The mine water is warmed by geothermal processes to provide a continuous supply of water at 18°C to 20°C.
Mine water temperatures are unaffected by seasonal variations, offering the potential for low cost, low carbon sustainable energy to be made available for local space heating and hot water throughout the year.
25% of homes and businesses in the United Kingdom are in the coalfields and 9 of the 10 largest UK urban areas are over or adjacent to abandoned coal mines. This means that the Seaham Garden Village scheme has the potential to pave the way for the large-scale proliferation of mine energy district heating schemes across the coalfield communities.
Tender deadline is 17 December 2021 – click here to access the tender documentation.
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