Gateshead District Energy Scheme
The council was presented with the Visionary Project Award by the Association for Decentralised Energy (ADE) at its 50th anniversary awards ceremony at the Science Museum in London. The special award ceremony was recognising the most significant schemes of the past decade, as well as looking for those scheme setting the bar for the next decade of energy initiatives.
The Visionary Project award received the most entries out of any category at the event. Sponsored by SAV Systems, the award highlights projects that look forward and dramatically change the vision of the energy industry for the future.
The Gateshead scheme was judged to be a “truly visionary” project. It provides heat through 3km of pipes and electricity through a private wire network to domestic, commercial and public sector customers.
It is one of the most unique projects in the country as it also offers peak power generation to help balance the grid through a mixture of battery storage and combined heat and power with heat storage.
Gateshead Council opened the Gateshead Energy Centre in March 2017 to provide heat and power to the district energy network across Gateshead town centre and the Gateshead Quays area.