3,500 megawatts of waste heat in the form of steam and warm air had been identified around Dublin which could heat many thousands more homes and premises. "We're looking at data centres, cold storage warehouses, wastewater treatment plants, power stations - all of these units that produce waste heat from your bakeries right down to your local crematorium, even though that seems a bit eerie to think about waste heat coming from there." “Because waste heat doesn’t tick the renewable energy box, the building regulations don’t value it in the same way,” she said. The potential for district heating was laid out at a conference on Ireland’s climate action ambitions where speakers repeatedly stressed how far behind the country is in meeting climate targets. Professor John FitzGerald of the Climate Action Advisory Council appealed to the research community to speak out about climate.

Source: Irish Independent February 25, 2021 17:03 UTC