Heat-as-a-Service: An Accelerator To Decarbonise Heat

The climate emergency is becoming a more important issue every day, and the need for new technologies to fight it cannot be overstated.  

Fortunately, governments across the globe have been working on regulations to support businesses on their road to net zero. In 2020, the European Union put the European Green Deal in place, a set of policy initiatives regulating and supporting the journey to climate neutrality by 2050. The United States also launched the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, providing significant tax credits for American customers.  

As a result of these regulations, the battle to decarbonise our heating (and cooling) is getting easier. Heating accounts for 51% of energy consumption world-wide, with only 10% of that energy being generated through renewables. The remaining 90% still comes from the burning of fossil fuels.  

While the need to decarbonise heat is obvious, the way to do it is often unclear for businesses trying to reach their net zero targets.

The first hurdle is finding the right technology to invest in, complicated further by the fact there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Given the many different applications for heat, businesses must take a technology-agnostic approach. This would allow each sector to deploy technology that provides them with the best carbon and energy savings and maximise energy efficiency. These solutions will also protect the end customer from sharp fluctuations in market prices. 

The second hurdle businesses have to overcome, especially in the commercial and industrial space, are large investment costs. The upfront capital expenditure (CAPEX) required for decarbonisation technology often requires businesses to tie up capital for a significant period of time. 

This long-term risk is often off-putting or unfeasible for some.  

If we’re to accelerate the decarbonisation of heat, we need to make energy-efficient technology accessible to everyone. The demand for low-temperature heat (up to 100 C) makes up 27% of global heat demand, and for those operating apartment blocks, hospitals and hotels where heat demand is constant and high, solar heat is the perfect solution. 

Naked Energy’s solar thermal Virtu product range is the world’s highest energy density solar technology and is already delivering zero carbon heat to projects around the world. VirtuHOT is a pure play solar thermal collector generating heat up to 120 C, whilst the VirtuPVT model is a hybrid technology generating both renewable electricity and heat from a single solar collector. 

The Virtu product range is designed to maximise energy output from a single installation, boosting the efficiency of any pre-existing heating technologies and reducing the reliance on fossil fuels.  

Due to their decentralised nature, both products are important pieces of the energy transition puzzle. By providing heat without the need to tap into the local electricity grid, they effectively remove strain from an increasingly stressed grid and enable green electricity to be used where it is most efficient.  

They also provide design flexibility, as they can be easily integrated alongside other forms of energy technology like heat pumps, gas heating, electric heating and biofuels. 

Heat-as-a-Service (HaaS) offerings that include Virtu provide businesses with an affordable alternative to installing the technology outright - allowing them to see the benefits of the installation immediately and supporting them with their decarbonisation from day one.  

Additionally, those businesses on a HaaS contract pay less for their kWh of heat than they did while still consuming fossil fuels.   

This model allows companies to focus on their core business and maintain their competitive edge, whilst Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) provide technical expertise, manage the operation and maintenance of the installation while delivering renewable heat through tried and tested solar heat and power technologies.  

It’s all packaged neatly into a reliable contract that meets the business’ needs and presents an attractive option to businesses given the money spent forms part of their operational expenditure, and not their capital expenditure. Therefore, the costs don’t appear on their balance sheet, freeing up resources for other parts of their operation.  

To make our Virtu technology more accessible to large-scale industry and city decarbonisation projects, we signed a partnership with E.ON Group’s Energy Infrastructure Solutions (EIS). We now offer a comprehensive Heat-as-a-Service package, leveraging our new partner’s experience and reach.   

The E.ON Group is one of Europe's largest operators of energy networks and energy infrastructure and a provider of innovative solutions for its city, industry and consumer customers. EIS is an accomplished partner providing integrated, sustainable, and digitally enabled energy solutions for cities and industries to reduce their carbon emissions. Operating in over 16 European countries, EIS services 1.5 million customers through 4,500 plants, collectively producing 19 TWh of heating, cooling and steam, as well as 12 TWh of electricity. 

You can learn more about our innovative Virtu product range and HaaS offer by reaching out via commercial@nakedenergy.com