Did you know, that for every 100 trucks of coal sent to Drax, the UK’s largest power station, only 40 get turned into electricity?

All the heat from burning the other 60 trucks of coal is simply thrown away into the atmosphere in cooling towers.  Drax is only 39.5% efficient.

When Battersea Power Station was opened, all its waste heat was thrown away into the Thames.  But in 1950 the Pimlico District Heating Undertaking was opened so that some of its waste heat could be used to supply heating and hot water to homes in Pimlico.  At first it supplied 1,600 homes.  Today it supplies 3,191 homes, 48 shops and 2 schools.

When the power station closed in 1983, boilers were used to keep the system running, but now the PDHU engines are generating electricity for the national grid once more, earning money to pay for community initiatives and using the waste heat for heating and hot water services.

Most of the time, the generation of electricity supplies all the heat needed to run PDHU, but to top up peak winter demand there are three highly efficient gas boilers that can generate an extra 24 megawatts of heat. 

The PDHU is saving fossil fuel and reducing greenhouse gas emissions and tackling fuel poverty, and it’s clean and green!