How geothermal energy can help Trusts hit Net Zero

Clive Nattrass, who is on secondment to the NHPower programme from the Carbon and Energy Fund, explains in this article how the programme is using collaboration to manage risks associated with Trusts progressing to Net Zero, while his colleague, the CEF’s Technical director, Stephen Lowndes, focuses on the opportunities for decarbonisation of natural gas at the point of use. Two colleagues from the energy sector, meanwhile, discuss the options for the wider deployment of geothermal energy technology across the NHS.

Part 1
Collaboration to meet NHS 2032 targets
Clive Nattrass, CEF

To meet 2032 targets the NHS needs to green most, if not all, of its top 211 CO2 fossil fuel emitters in under a decade – i.e. the Trusts that use 10 m kWh or more of gas per annum. Since 1996 the NHS has been implementing carbon and energy reduction projects, and now we have exemplar ‘fossil fuel Net Zero’ hospitals emerging at Eastbourne, Bridlington and other locations. However, the challenge of ‘greening’ over 200 hospitals by 2032, in a time of low capital, challenged revenue budgets, and annual Government decarbonisation grants that are soft capped, cannot be overstated. Almost all technologies that would allow an NHS Trust to get to Net Zero involve risk. Even heat pump technology is in its early days, and has yet to prove its resilience at scale in a hospital environment – albeit introducing an additional annual running cost.