Cory Group, through its subsidiary RHN Developments Ltd, has secured £41.63 million (US$55 million) in Green Heat Network Fund support from the UK Government to develop the London Strategic Heat Main, a low-carbon heat transmission network connecting its Riverside facility in Belvedere, Bexley, with heat networks across central London.

The London Strategic Heat Main (LSHM) is a proposed large-scale heat transmission network being developed by Cory Group to transport surplus low-carbon heat from the company’s Riverside Campus in Belvedere, Bexley, on the Thames Estuary, to heat networks in central London. The system will use hot-water pipes installed in tunnels to carry heat more than 25 km, with the initial route crossing Bexley, Greenwich, Lewisham, Southwark, the City of London, Lambeth and Westminster. Further branches to Barking and Dagenham, Tower Hamlets, and Kensington and Chelsea are also being considered. The main heat source will initially be surplus heat from Cory’s energy-from-waste facilities at Riverside. Rather than allowing this heat to go unused, the project will capture it and transfer it into a strategic transmission network, from which local heat networks can distribute heating and hot water to homes and businesses. The initial system is expected to provide heat to local networks serving more than one million people. 

The project has received £41.63 million through the UK Government’s Green Heat Network Fund (GHNF). This comprises £1 million in commercialisation funding and £40.63 million in construction funding. The award was made to RHN Developments Limited, a Cory Group company, and represents the first award under the GHNF’s new Strategic Heat Main funding category. The fund is administered by Triple Point on behalf of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. A temporary mobile heat system using electric thermal barges is planned to supply central London while the permanent tunnel infrastructure is being developed. From 2028, the barges are intended to transport heated water along the River Thames to insulated hot-water storage tanks located in new pontoons. This would allow heat to reach central London before the permanent strategic heat main is completed. 

The LSHM is intended to reduce London's dependence on natural gas for heating. Cory estimates that replacing gas-fired heating with the initial low-carbon heat source could reduce heating-related carbon emissions by around 95% and eliminate nitrogen oxide emissions from gas boilers at source. The project is also expected to help unlock approximately £5 billion of investment in local heat networks across London. The strategic heat main is being developed alongside other heat-network projects. In particular, Cory and Vattenfall are developing the Riverside Heat Network to supply low-carbon heat to homes and other consumers in Bexley and Greenwich. That project has separately received £11.51 million from the Green Heat Network Fund and is designed to operate independently while retaining the potential to connect to the LSHM in the future. The project is also being developed in coordination with heat-network developers, including Hemiko, with Cory exploring connections that could allow local networks to access the strategic heat source. Cory has previously identified 1Energy, Bring Energy, E.ON, Hemiko, Vital Energi and Vattenfall among the heat-network developers it is working with in London.