Unmonitored heat networks don’t usually perform well; poorly performing networks mean higher costs and increased carbon emissions. Even where networks are well-designed and commissioned before residents move in, performance tends to drift over time. It is not uncommon for the cost of delivered heat to double in just a few years on unwatched networks. 

Networks need to be monitored and managed to ensure good ongoing performance, going beyond just capturing consumption data. Guru Pinpoint displays real-time data from individual dwellings, block meters, and plant rooms to help diagnose problems and better understand your heat losses. 

Upcoming regulation from Ofgem by 2025 will demand better performance from heat networks, with data reported annually. It’s more important than ever to ensure you are able to accurately capture data from your heat network, monitor it and report on it in order to be regulation compliant.

Next we have an example where dashboards can be used to help understand how different parts of the heat network are performing. The following two dashboards are from two different blocks on the same heat network – with data coming from the bulk meters from each block.

This block is performing well:

Whereas the adjacent block has a DeltaT of only 7 degrees and heat losses are about 50% higher than the first block. Here there appear to be one or more open bypasses on the block, with around half of the water pumped around the circuit coming back through a bypass rather than through an HIU. This is likely to be a commissioning issue.

By continuously monitoring your heat network performance, you can reduce call-outs, keep your operating costs low, and identify common heat network problems including HIU faults, open bypasses, and commissioning errors.

Read about Pinpoint in action

Case Study: Mildmay – HNES Demonstrator

Mildmay is a development-led network in Shoreditch, East London with 139 residential connections, a hospital, and a church, constructed in 2014 by Notting Hill Genesis. Guru Systems technology was installed at this site as part of the HNES Demonstrator programme in partnership with specialist engineering consultancy FairHeat and supported by housing association Notting Hill Genesis.

Visualise performance data, not just kWh

Ofgem will begin regulating heat networks by 2025. Changes will require all heat networks to report on their energy performance. Guru Pinpoint gives you the visibility to identify and fix problems so that your heat networks meet standards to avoid being flagged as non-compliant with regulation.

For network operators, it will be important that the data you’re submitting to Ofgem shows a well performing network. Submitting evidence of a poorly performing network is likely to mean the submission will be flagged up as a higher risk by Ofgem, potentially resulting in an audit and an imposed requirement for remediation. The best thing you can do is to collect data long before you have to submit it to Ofgem; that way, you have time to fix performance issues. 

Our industry will need to make use of all heat network data to meet these requirements. Guru Pinpoint captures data across six registers: flow temperature (°C), return temperature (°C), flow rate (m3/hour), volume (m3), instantaneous power (kW), and energy (kWh). All six registers are needed to analyse heat network performance, it’s not enough to rely on infrequent kWh readings alone. 

Guru Pinpoint displays this performance data and analyses all six registers – including using kWh data for heat loss calculations. Users can view real-time readings and enhanced data including delta temperature and heat losses across a network.

Understand volume weighted average return temperature

Guru Pinpoint also shows volume weighted average return temperature (VWART) by HIU mode. VWART is the best metric for understanding dwelling-level performance as it goes beyond showing the return temperature at a point in time and instead indicates how much water is being returned at that temperature. 

Guru Pinpoint uses machine learning algorithms to determine which of the three modes an HIU is currently operating in (space heating, domestic hot water, or standby). It then calculates the volume weighted average return temperature for each mode – helping you to better diagnose problems and target maintenance visits or make remote changes.

For example, on the below heat network, the VWARTs by mode is clearly shown, which allows us to then sort the dwellings to identify that in this block it’s only five dwellings of the dwellings that are underperforming. This helps with the heat network operator target maintenance work.

Understanding where and why problems occur helps maintenance visits to go more smoothly on the day. Real-time data can be used to verify repairs or changes immediately to reduce the need for future call-outs.

View heat losses and heat loss per dwelling 

Guru Pinpoint displays total heat losses and heat loss per dwelling for the entire network, and in zones downstream of any bulk meters. Dashboards and colour-coded network maps help to identify where heat losses are, supporting targeted interventions. Heat network performance has the biggest influence on resident heating bills and so accurately monitoring your heat network is of great significance in reducing customer bills.

For Ogem, as well as reporting, new and existing sites will also have to meet minimum technical standards including regulations protecting customers. Average heat loss data is available over 1 day, 7 days, 1 month, 3 months or 6 months, helping you to prepare for existing and future reporting requirements. Use data displayed on Guru Pinpoint to verify that regulatory and site-specific requirements are being met, both ahead of handover and in operation.

While many heat networks do run well, especially those that are monitored using performance data, many do not perform anywhere near their intended efficiency. Work carried out by Guru Systems for DESNZ found that on average many only deliver 36% of input energy to dwellings as useful heat, against design efficiencies of more than 80%.

Data visibility drives good performance

As we have discussed throughout, even where networks are well-designed and properly commissioned before residents move in, heat networks are often left to drift, with performance degrading over time.

This is often not due to a fault in equipment but rather is due to the accumulation of many small changes in the system over time, for example, maintenance engineers changing one part of a heat network without regard to the effect on the whole. 

Access to detailed data for site-wide diagnostics allows problems or inefficiencies to be identified, reducing total energy costs. It can also point maintenance engineers in the right direction, reducing the time spent investigating problems on-site.

Use Guru Pinpoint to monitor, analyse and report on your heat network data and begin to improve the efficiency and performance of your heat network to reduce costs, meet regulatory requirements and reduce carbon emissions through better management.

Want to know more about Guru Pinpoint? Speak to our Sales team via sales@gurusystems.com or 020 8050 4305 or fill in the below form to make an enquiry.

The world of heat networks is changing dramatically. Ofgem will begin regulating our industry within the next two years, and this means a big shift for everybody who’s involved with the process of designing, installing, commissioning, and operating heat networks.  It is now more important than ever to think ahead and incorporate meters where they are not installed or retrofit meters that are able to capture more than a basic kWh reading and provide all six registers instead (energy in kWh, power in kW, flow temperature, return temperature, flow rate and cumulative volume). 

We are already working with housing associations, local authorities, and developers to help them prepare for changing regulations affecting how they capture their heat network data, including providing them with a sensible and cost-effective option to capture reliable meter data on their networks: Guru Hub 3 Core.

Compliance with existing regulations

The Heat Networks (Metering and Billing) Regulations came into force in 2014, and amongst other requirements, they include a requirement for heat suppliers to fit heat meters, and then to bill customers based on the amount of heat they consume.  Relevant properties must have metering devices installed, along with remote meter reading systems to facilitate the individual billing of residents.

Guru Hub 3 Core captures data for both credit billing, and every five minutes for network performance management via Guru Pinpoint. This means that with one device, heat suppliers can bill their residents based on their consumption, and see heat network performance data.

Future regulatory changes and reporting requirements

There are four key areas that we know that Ofgem is going to regulate: customer protection, technical standards, price, and carbon emissions. We also know that regulation is going to be retrospective – meaning that existing heat networks will also have to comply. This will be the case whether we’re talking about billing customers based on how much they use, or reporting performance data to Ofgem on a regular basis.

What this is likely to mean is that meters are going to have to go into dwellings on a much wider basis, and the meters that are in dwellings will need to deliver more accurate and reliable data for reporting performance data back to Ofgem annually.

Guru Hub 3 was designed with this requirement in mind. No wires makes installation much easier when meters and meter readers are being retrofitted into existing heat networks. 

Reporting energy performance data to Ofgem

Ofgem has recognised that stakeholders must be able to verify outcomes with data by digitalising the way that stakeholders report to them as the regulator. It will become a requirement that a consultant, contractor, or client must show that what was specified is ultimately what was then delivered – all by providing data, including meter data, that supports this. 

Meters and meter readers, such as Guru Hub 3 Core,  will need to be installed where they aren’t currently, and the meters that are installed already will have to report more than the simple kilowatt-hour reading that was necessary for the Heat Network (Metering and Billing) Regulations. 

Now, our entire industry will need to do what the team at Guru Systems have always known to be important: make use of all the data available from heat meters – that’s all six registers not just kilowatt hours – and make use of this data to monitor and improve energy performance. This data must be used to demonstrate that the heat network is meeting the expectations that have been set out in regulations and in the project specification.

The embodiment of this in regulatory terms is the Technical Assurance Scheme. To protect customers, and to keep prices and carbon emissions low, the fundamental task is to develop this scheme so that poor heat networks can’t get through. Metering and reporting on data will form a fundamental part of these regulations in order to monitor heat network operation.

What is Guru Hub 3 Core?

Guru Systems spent two years working with our clients to develop Guru Hub 3 Core, our first screen-free automatic meter reader. It monitors up to four utilities, and controls up to two external control devices, such as shut-off valves. The utility meter data captured by the Guru Hub 3 Core is then structured and accessed online or via FTP, ready to be used for credit billing. The Guru Hub 3 Core is price-competitive with wired M-Bus, and it works using Guru’s wireless mesh network, meaning no site-wide M-Bus cabling is required.

Why wireless mesh technology is the best solution for retrofit projects

Running cables to occupied dwellings is expensive and extremely disruptive for residents. Guru Hub 3 Core is not only more reliable than wired M-Bus, but requires less time on site to install.

Guru Hub 3 Core is price competitive with wired M-Bus in new builds, so when the cost of retrofitting properties is considered, savings are even greater.

Talk to us if you want to get regulation ready: