Contract for the Provision of Low Carbon Heat to the Seaham Garden Village Via a District Heating Network

This contract is for the supply of low carbon heat from mine water to the Seaham Garden Village development.

The site of the proposed Seaham Garden Village development is adjacent to the Coal Authority's Dawdon mine water treatment scheme. This scheme protects vital drinking water abstraction from Durham Magnesian Limestone, and pumps up to 150 litres of mine water per second to the surface for treatment. This mine water is warmed by geothermal processes to provide a continuous supply of water at 18 to 20°C. With mine water temperatures unaffected by seasonal variations, there is a potential for low cost, low carbon sustainable energy to be made available for local space heating and hot water throughout the year.

The Coal Authority is advancing plans to convert the UK's abandoned coal mines from a liability to an asset of strategic importance to the UK. Dawdon is just one of 75 mine water treatment schemes across the UK that the Coal Authority operates. In total these schemes release circa 100MW of geothermal energy to the atmosphere that could be used for heating purposes. 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.