Discussion. The Pimlico District Heating Undertaking-Costs and Financial Results.

Abstract

338DISCUSSION ON THE PIMLICO DISTBIUJ! Discussion M r W. B. Noddings (Chief Commercial Officer, Central Electricity Authority) said that it was well known that very great difsculty and many problems arose in allocating the costs of a combined product; for example, what was the cost of wool and what was the cost of lamb? It was clear that the particular solution must depend on the particular circumstances. The Authors had dated that in Germany more than sixty different methods of cost allocation between electricity and heat supply had been used. TheAuthors deserved sympathy in having to make the diEcult choice between all the methods available, but he thought it would be agreed that in the solution which they had adopted they were certainly not biased in favour of electricity, and it might be said that they had erred, if a t all, in the direction of showing a very favourable charge to the heat supply. They had explained that in the hypothetical scheme for the ultimate development they had credited the kilowatt outpnt of the back-pressure plant with a full kilowatt charge, on the ground that in the case in question the accumulator permitted the operation of the station in such a way that the output of the station broadly followed the requirements of the electricity supply system. That was a very fair basis of assessment in the particular case considered, but there might be other cases of district heating where those circumstances would not apply and where the output fi-om a station might in summer be less than the appropriate proportion of the winter output which was required by the seasonal variation in the electricity requirements. In that case, of course, it would be appropriate to devalue the kilowatts. Many interesting figures were given in the Paper, and others could be derived from those given. It seemed that the overall efficiency of conversion-i.e., the energy supplied by way of electricity and heat related t o the heat input in the coal-was of the order of 80%. The corresponding figure if the two supplies, of electricity and heat, were derived independently, the one by electricity production in the normal way and the other by independent central heating, was about 55%. The figure of 27% had been given by the Authors for electricity production, and a figure of 60 to 65% might be taken for independent central heating.

District heating as heterotopia: Tracing the social contract through domestic energy infrastructure in Pimlico, London

“…In 1956, when the engineering community was reviewing the first few years' operation of the “Pimlico pilot plant,” one commented that the experiment had “a value which could not be expressed in terms of money; it demonstrated the feasibility of heat‐electric operation for district heating purposes” (Noddings et al :339–340). In this article, I have tried to show how these calculations of feasibility created a heterotopia by conceptually linking social and technical elements across shifting temporal and spatial scales.…”

“…The first two years' operating data were scrutinized in the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers by engineers, architects, and interested parties (cf. Noddings et al ; Ratcliff et al ). They found it was hard to separate out the costs of producing heat with the installed technology and discovered that CEGB's plant had operational difficulties further affecting the economics.…”

“…Not all engineers reviewing the system were convinced that heat should be backgrounded as a basic standard of living rather than being metered as a consumable. The engineering community felt heat could be delivered cheaply but pointed out that the annual cost to the resident was significant, and they wondered whether, in Britain, there were “enough people who were prepared to pay to be comfortable” (Noddings et al :342). One pointed out that “whereas a tenant could shut off his radiators for any length of time, he could not shut off the bill” (Donkin et al :285).…”

“…Her opinion confirmed that some tenants did not want to move to the Churchill Gardens Estate in Pimlico because “they were fearful of the charge for heat” but that she had not found a single resident who would give up the new system once he or she had moved in. An engineer conceded that “apparently people had become accustomed to the amenities and seemed prepared to pay for them” (Noddings et al :343).…”