A heat network supplies heating, hot water or cooling to more than one building or home from a central source, through a network of insulated pipes. When it serves many buildings across an area it is usually called district heating; when it serves the flats in a single building it is called communal heating.
How it works
An energy centre heats water and pumps it round the pipes. Each building or flat takes heat through a heat exchanger or heat interface unit, and the cooled water returns to be reheated. The heat can come from gas boilers, combined heat and power plants, large heat pumps, or waste heat from industry, sewers, rivers or flooded mines. Because the source is central, a whole network can switch to a lower-carbon supply without every building changing its own heating.
Rules in Great Britain
| Area | Position |
|---|---|
| Size of sector | Ofgem estimates over 14,000 networks, from single blocks of flats to large district schemes |
| Regulator | Ofgem, since 27 January 2026, in England, Scotland and Wales |
| Customer protections | Fair treatment, clear bills, fair pricing, complaints and redress through the Energy Ombudsman |
| Registration deadline | Operators and suppliers must register with Ofgem by 26 January 2027 |
Before 2026, most heat network customers had few of the protections that gas and electricity customers have. Existing networks were authorised automatically, and Ofgem is introducing the rules in phases.
Heat network zoning
The Energy Act 2023 gives powers to create heat network zones in England, areas where a network is judged the cheapest low-carbon way to supply heat. In a zone, new buildings, communally heated buildings and larger non-domestic buildings could be asked to connect. The government’s January 2026 response aims to more than double the share of England’s heat demand met by heat networks to 7% (27 TWh) by 2035, and expects networks to supply a fifth of all heat by 2050. Check GOV.UK for whether the zoning regulations are in force.
Read more: Renewable energy in cities: rooftops, heat networks and urban planning.