Wolverhampton launches Heath Town energy centre to serve estate's new council homes

City of Wolverhampton Council has launched its Heath Town Energy Centre, part of a £19.5m heat network investment that it said will cut energy costs for more than 1,000 residents and supply the new council homes being built on the estate.

The centre was delivered by Wolverhampton Homes, the council's housing manager, with contractor United Infrastructure. It houses 48 roof-mounted evaporators serving air source heat pumps, backed by supplementary hydrogen-ready boilers, a combination the council said it believes is only the second of its kind in Europe.

The council said the existing boiler house was nearing the end of its serviceable life, with spare parts and repairs becoming harder to obtain. In its March 2025 funding announcement it went further, saying the original building had been designed to burn coal, was no longer fit for purpose and that its pre-cast reinforced concrete panelling had started to fail.

Councillor Steve Evans, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for City Housing and Assets at City of Wolverhampton Council, said: "The new Heath Town Energy Centre is a major investment in the future of the estate and will provide a more reliable, efficient and sustainable heat network for residents."

The funding

The council said £7.5m of government money from the Heat Network Efficiency Scheme is supporting the £19.5m programme, with the balance from its Housing Revenue Account Capital Programme. Its 26 March 2025 release had put the grant at £8m from the same scheme, for the same £19.5m works, with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero announcing the award.

According to the department, the scheme is a £107m grant programme running from 2023-24 to 2029-30, open to public, private and third sector organisations in England and Wales. It is led by delivery partner Talan, supported by Ramboll, Lux Nova and Gleeds.

The wider works include new heat interface units in residents' homes, the council said in March 2025. At that point it expected the heat network works to start in April 2025 and last two years. By December 2025, Wolverhampton Homes was describing the energy centre on Chervil Rise as recently built, with deck-access homes being connected as they received new boilers and radiators.

Ian Gardner, Director of Housing Operations at Wolverhampton Homes, said: "The innovative systems installed in the new energy centre will also reduce our carbon emissions by over 500 tonnes per year."

Lee Davis, Head of Operations at United Infrastructure, said the centre would give residents a heating system they could rely on while helping to reduce energy costs.

The housing

The heat network supplies every property on the estate, and the council said the new centre is sized to meet current demand more efficiently while adding capacity for new homes as Heath Town grows.

Housebuilding is already under way. In March 2025 the council said 40 new council homes had been built as the first phase of more than 150 planned for the estate. In July 2026 it announced that work had started on a scheme within a second phase aiming to deliver more than 100 council homes across five sites, with construction partner Keon Homes building 32 one- and two-bedroom apartments on the former Duke of York pub site. Those apartments will take heating and hot water from the district heating network, according to Keon Homes.

The energy centre and new homes sit within a £120m Heath Town regeneration programme that the council said is intended to benefit more than 2,500 residents, and which has included new energy efficient cladding on existing blocks. United Infrastructure has been carrying out improvement works to the estate's mid-rise blocks, according to Wolverhampton Homes.

Wolverhampton Homes, which manages more than 21,000 homes for the council, runs the Heath Town district heating scheme on a not-for-profit basis. Hot water is pumped from the central boiler house through pipes to individual homes, and residents pay for what they use through a Switch2 pre-payment metering system.

United Infrastructure's website describes the Heath Town work as a £120m package of regeneration works delivered across various phases.