Welcome to the Shetland Heat Energy and Power Ltd website. Our aim is to provide you with useful information about our company that we hope will encourage development of similar schemes throughout the UK.

Shetland Heat Energy and Power Ltd has been serving district heating to both domestic and non domestic properties in Lerwick since 1998. Hot water is pumped around Lerwick through underground insulated pipes and enters properties through a heat exchanger, supplying their heating and hot water needs. The heat used in the scheme is generated at a Waste to Energy Incinerator located on the outskirts of Lerwick. The incinerator at the Energy Recovery Plant burns domestic and commercial waste from Shetland, Orkney and from the offshore oil industry, reducing the amount of waste going to landfill. Up to June 2009 there was a total of 1002 connections and 961 of these are receiving heat.

As the number of customers is increasing, an additional energy source is essential. In 2006 a hot water storage tank was installed to store excess heat during off-peak periods and provide heat during peak loads. This allowed for the equivalent of a further 500 properties to be connected without the need for an additional heat source. Another 6.5 MW boiler was installed in 2008 to give a total back up capacity of 15 MW based at the Peak Load Boiler Station. Using customers former boilers as additional back-ups, there is a further 6 MW of boiler capacity spread around Lerwick.

During 2007/08 a radio transmitting system was installed to collect customer meter readings and transmit them directly to our office on demand.