The irony of this is that we now have a different challenge. As heat networks are embraced and new developments are encouraged the Shetland scheme has been in operation so long, the preservation and asset management of the network are now key priorities.
Not to fall behind, SHEAP have initiated a renewed estate management programme and set about introducing measures which will hopefully see the network last for another twenty years at least.
Part of this programme was to look to benchmark and share knowledge and experiences with other district heating operators and organisations. Who better to turn to at this time than our colleagues in Denmark once more.
In early summer we came across an advert in the Hot/Cool Danish District Heating magazine promoting a mentoring programme for UK based district heating companies. We contacted Morten Duedahl, business development manager at DBDH, who explained the scheme and invited us to participate. Soon we were introduced to our mentor Morten Stobbe from VEKS who operate district heating schemes in Copenhagen. Several ZOOM calls later we’ve now had high quality presentations and discourse from various representatives from the district heating supply chain in Denmark. Morten from VEKS has remained a consistently positive presence where we’ve exchanged knowledge and ideas on operating district heating. During this time we also reached out to other district heating schemes in the United Kingdom and exchanged ideas and knowledge on the challenges and opportunities we have. Ironically this quality of engagement and strong communication is almost because of Covid-19 and not despite it. Suddenly having the opportunity and ability to arrange video calls and reach out to so many people has been really helpful. Living remotely in Shetland almost every meeting prior to Covid-19 requires a plane trip, so seeing the world becoming used to video conferencing is not only good for us – it’s good for the planet. Through our mentoring with the DBDH we began to develop a new approach to network management. An issue for us, and it seems for many district heating operators, is that most interventions seem to be reactive. There are so many disadvantages to this, it’s hard to know where to begin.
However we can say it’s like a sticking plaster approach where we’re constantly just repairing leaks. What we wanted to do in Shetland is renovate the network and improve its integrity so that we eliminate leaks.
The sticking plaster approach also means that leaks occur in the most inconvenient places at the most inconvenient time – Murphy’s law as we say here in the UK. We want to control how we intervene on the network and reduce this erratic approach, both operationally and for customers. Prior to joining the mentoring scheme, we’d started considering the possibility of drone surveys as a method of assessing our network condition. We’ve some very good drone companies in Shetland but they are not familiar with thermographic surveying. Through the mentoring programme we were introduced to a Danish drone company specialising in district heating surveys and that was a light bulb moment for us. We partnered themwith our local drone specialist in Lerwick and we now have a proposal for a full drone survey which should give us visibility on all vulnerable areas of the network.
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