Tallaght District Heating Scheme

Key achievements

• Almost 6,000 MWh of energy has been generated to date; The lifetime energy generated over 30 years is estimated to be 270,000 MWh.
• A total of 1,098 tCO2 have been saved to date (as of June 2024).
• The lifetime of the district heating plant is expected to be 25-35 years.

About the Tallaght District Heating scheme

The Tallaght District Heating Scheme is the first large-scale district heating network of its kind in Ireland. It operates under Heat Works, Ireland’s first not-for-profit energy utility, fully owned by South Dublin County Council. The scheme helps to significantly reduce emissions in the area by almost 1,500 tonnes of CO2/year, establishing Tallaght as a leader in local energy action. 

Waste heat from the data centre

Waste heat from the nearby Amazon data centre supplies 100% of the heat to the network. The network currently supplies the council’s County Hall complex, Technical University of Dublin Tallaght campus and will soon be supplying heat to the Innovation Centre and Affordable Apartment schemes.

Heat Works is an exemplar heat network business in Ireland, delivering economic, environmental, and social benefits for the local area and helping make South Dublin a better place to live, work and visit. It is the only scheme in Ireland or the UK to use waste heat from a local data centre. It also provides an original low-carbon solution, optimising recyclable heat with innovative heat-pump technology. While the current heat source is data centre waste heat, further renewable heat sources can be added as the system develops.

Given that there is enough waste and renewable heat in Dublin to heat the equivalent of 1.6 million homes, this project is a perfect example of how Ireland should be capturing this waste heat and putting it to good use, rather than simply letting it escape into the atmosphere. 

Plans for the future

While the current heat source is the data centre waste heat, the plan is to add more low-carbon or renewable heat sources as the system grows and develops, such as geothermal and solar thermal. The energy centre also includes full peak load back-up via an electric boiler to ensure heat supply can be met at all times, meaning that customers do not require individual back-up systems. The district heating pipe network can also function as a thermal store and as it develops and expands; it will play an important role in grid balancing and potentially provide a use for curtailed (or wasted) renewable energy through its heat pumps and electric boilers. This ability will be further enhanced by the planned addition of large thermal energy stores. 

This form of energy storage is not common at such a large scale in Ireland. This, in combination with the electrical heat pump equipment (i.e. heat pump and boiler), presents a new opportunity to provide services to the electricity grid and enable larger proportions of renewable generation on the electricity grid by providing grid balancing and frequency response services.

Collaborations that work!

The unique collaboration between South Dublin County Council, Amazon, Fortum (the contractor) and Codema (as well as with government departments such as DECC) has been key to the success of this project, resulting in an innovative, low-carbon solution, optimising the potential of recyclable heat combined with innovative heat-pump technology. Early engagement through the permitting phase was also key in initiating this collaboration. 

Community awareness

Community engagement and public awareness is carried out regularly through tours of the energy centre (e.g. since July 2023, more than 25 groups have visited the scheme). The benefits of district heating (such as competitiveness, reliability and environmental factors) and connecting to the TDHS are regularly communicated by all parties involved.

How district heating can help support our decarbonisation goals

Ireland currently has the lowest share of renewable heat across the EU and currently relies on imported fossil fuels to meet the majority of its heating needs. This type of system also has the potential to free up capacity on the electricity grid to enable the more cost-effective electrification of heating and transport needed to achieve broader decarbonisation targets and eventually achieve carbon neutrality. The scheme can also make a big impact in terms of replication - there are enough renewable/waste heat sources in Dublin to heat the equivalent of 1.6 million homes and district heating can avail of these sources instead of letting them go to waste. The Tallaght scheme shows just how possible this is.