Parks are the perfect place to take kids to play, enjoy a quiet stroll or have a kick about. But they cost money to maintain - something councils have less and less of. Parks are also home to a large amount of ambient heat, stored in the ground below the lawns and playing fields. We can harvest this low carbon thermal energy for our buildings with the help of heat pumps.
A heat pump is a cunning device for collecting the ambient heat all around us - in the air, the ground or bodies of water - concentrating it, and pumping it into spaces we need to warm like schools, leisure centres or housing blocks.
Powering Parks is a project by Possible, Hackney council and Scene. We have been investigating the potential for installing heat pumps in Hackney’s parks to provide heat to nearby buildings. If successful, it has the potential to tackle climate change, improve air quality and generate income for councils and park authorities to re-invest locally.
The full research report and toolkit can be found HERE. [https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d30896202a18c0001b49180/t/5de7e8b2b3cba52aa92f9ad4/1575479486917/PoweringParks.pdf]