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Nesta is an innovation foundation. For us, innovation means turning bold ideas into reality and changing lives for the better. We use our expertise, skills and funding in areas where there are big challenges facing society.

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In A sustainable future

A case study resource for coordinating clean heat

This project started in January 2025 and is ongoing

Providing a collection of area-based approaches to provide inspiration, learnings and resources to deliver clean heat schemes.

We want to provide a resource for those interested in adopting an area-based approach to low-carbon heat by collating details, case studies and analysis on projects that may provide inspiration, learnings or resources. This could range from local authority-wide collective purchasing schemes for heat pumps to city-centre heat networks. We aim to ensure that, wherever possible, these approaches can be replicated and learnings adapted for localised contexts. We’ve started collecting case studies from schemes around the UK and will publish regular updates on the Nesta website as a single, living resource.

During 2024, we co-created a proposal for a coordinated, area-based approach to decarbonising home heating. This could result in benefits for consumers, supply chain and governments, so our earlier phases of this work proposed a process to do this.

As part of this proposal, we were in conversations with projects across the UK – all at various stages of developing clean heat schemes that coordinate multiple households to switch to low-carbon, electrified heating. These projects look to prove models and understand how to roll out schemes across a range of sizes and scales. For example, county-wide collective purchasing schemes for air-source heat pumps, heat networks across a city centre, and networked ground-source heat pumps across several terraced streets.

The retrofitting of heat across multi-tenure properties is still in its infancy in the UK. There are, however, a number of projects pioneering a range of approaches that other areas may be able to adopt, replicate or adapt. With an increasing interest in area-based approaches, we are looking to make these projects as visible as possible for those who may want to build on their learnings.

We currently see a need for projects to be more visible and easily discoverable for those who may be looking into clean heat neighbourhoods for the first time.

Impact goal

Our aim is to provide a resource that reduces the barriers for local bodies and partners to move towards a more coordinated, area-based approach to low-carbon heat.

By signposting to projects across the UK, we hope to highlight the different approaches and technologies most suitable for particular contexts. Bringing schemes together in one place should allow for wider visibility of the different options available, so those looking for approaches to replicate can find relevant information.

We’ll summarise learnings from projects with the hope that this may help to minimise the duplication of work, increasing the pace of the rollout of clean heat neighbourhood-type schemes.

Why are we doing this?

There have been similar efforts to create libraries of case studies for retrofit. However, we believe the complexity and often communal nature of area-based, clean-heat schemes gives merit to having a dedicated case study resource. We believe a similar exercise with a focus on low-carbon heat would bring together a slightly different and more focused set of stakeholders to collaborate, learn and build the capacity to deliver clean heat schemes.

During our clean heat neighbourhoods work in 2024, we brought together stakeholders across the UK, including several pilot projects, with many well plugged into the work of others. The collaborative work highlighted how to those slightly removed, or new to area-based heat decarbonisation, it can be a confusing landscape to navigate. As an independent actor, Nesta can bring together these case actors across different technologies and commercial models.

What have we done?

Our collaborative space for the case study resource is now live. As an introduction to the format, you can view two featured examples of place-based clean heating projects. Our goal is to make these projects more visible and accessible to foster collaboration and accelerate the rollout of clean heat solutions across the UK. We will need your help to feature a wider range of inspiring projects and to refine the format over time.

As this resource grows, we hope you’ll be able to find relevant examples for quick inspiration or guidance on how to start a coordinated transition for your neighbourhood or area – whether you're a local council, community group, or simply curious.

Contact us about featuring your scheme

Are you involved in or know of a project that you think should be featured in the case study resource? We invite contributions from any scheme that is in the process of switching multiple households from fossil-fuel heating.

The scheme or project will be featured on a map with some brief context, and some will be selected for a more detailed case study – highlighting key features, surfacing transferable learnings, signposting to further resources and points of contact. We also aim to generate analyses on types, topics or themes from the case studies.

New enquiries can be sent to: [email protected]

Alongside contributions, we encourage feedback on the current format of the map, overview detail, and selected case studies. We aim to collaboratively design this resource to be more effective and engaging for relevant stakeholders.