The Heat Networks
Industry Council

Lord Callanan
Minister for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance
Department for Energy Security and Net Zero

Lord Callanan is co-chair of the Council. He was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance) at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero on 7 February 2023.

Follow the link to read more about the minister.

Nicola Hindle
Chief Executive Officer
BUUK Infrastructure

Nicola is co-chair of the council. She joined BUUK as Chief Operating Officer in October 2020 and took on the role of CEO in April 2022. A qualified accountant, Nicola previously worked for Amey for 15 years, rising through Finance Director to Managing Director of the Consulting and Rail Business. Nicola had ultimate responsibility for the growth and performance of these businesses and contributed to and delivered corporate strategies for the growth of Amey as a whole, as part of its Executive Leadership team.

John Abraham
Chief Operating Officer
Veolia

With over 30 years of engineering and management experience, John Abraham is a highly experienced COO leading complex operations for Veolia across the Industrial, Water and energy sectors in the UK, Ireland, and the Nordics. He manages £700m annual revenue and 2,500 personnel, ensuring optimal financial returns for investors and delivering excellence in Health and safety and Environmental practices.

Jenny Curtis
Managing Director
Vattenfall Heat UK

Jenny is a highly experienced professional with a background in accounting, public finance, and management consultancy. She spent a decade leading the sustainable energy team at Amber Infrastructure, where she built a business delivering commercial investments in energy transition in partnership with the UK government.

Nick Gosling
Chief Strategy Officer
Vital Energi

Nick has worked in the energy sector for more than 30 years, he has helped to deliver technical and financial solutions for some of the UK’s largest Heat Networks. He translates his knowledge of engineering and policy into practical real-world solutions, helping customers to create affordable and deliverable low carbon heat network and decarbonisation projects.

Richard Harrison
Chief Executive Officer
Switch2

Richard Harrison is CEO of Switch2 Energy, the Bradford-based Communal Heating company.  He’s delivering the vision of sustainable heating for residents, using UK manufactured products, and market-leading billing services. He has developed a data-first strategy to eliminate tonnes of carbon from the UK consumer heating market.

Toby Heysham
Chief Executive Officer
Hemiko

Toby is the CEO of Hemiko (formerly Pinnacle Power). He has led Hemiko since its inception to deliver over 100 energy projects across the UK, including the development of district heat networks, low carbon power plants and the operation of a heat utility. Toby oversees a diverse portfolio of responsibilities, including legal structuring of power and heat assets, project finance for multi-million energy assets, and spearheading the board of SPVs for other funded power-based generation companies.

Chris Lovatt
Chief Operating Officer
E. ON

Chris has spent 30 years working in major operational, commercial and supply chain roles for companies such as Land Rover, BMW, Boots and Ernst & Young. He joined E.ON in 2009 and held a number of senior roles in Supply Chain, Field Operations, Customer Service and Sales Operations, before being appointed to the UK Board in 2017 as Managing Director of Residential. He took on his current role in September 2020.

Mark Raymond
Managing Director - Urban Energy
EQUANS

Mark has over 15 years of experience leading and motivating teams delivering technical, energy and facility services in demanding businesses. He worked at Engie for over 10 years and was initially responsible for implementing and delivering the special purpose vehicle set up to operate the Stratford and Olympic Park heat network.

Nathan Sanders
Managing Director
SSE

Nathan Sanders started his career with SSE over thirty years ago as an apprentice and in this time has gone on to complete a Master’s Degree in Positive Leadership Practice. He has also made the transition to senior management, holding his current position as Managing Director for over a decade. Nathan currently leads the Distributed Energy team within SSE Energy Solutions, which invests, designs, owns, operates, maintains, and optimises local energy infrastructure in the UK and Ireland.

Caroline Bragg
Chief Executive Officer
ADE

Caroline has worked in the energy sector for almost a decade, working across renewable electricity, innovation and now decentralised energy. She has worked at the ADE for over 6 years – focusing first on policy for our sectors and more latterly, also on research in energy through leading the ADE’s ACE-Research consultancy arm. She has sat on numerous energy sector Boards and groups. This includes most recently the Prospering from the Energy Revolution’s Advisory Group and as Treasurer for CogenEurope.

ADE

The ADE is the UK’s leading decentralised energy advocate, focussed on creating a more cost effective, efficient and user-led energy system. The ADE has more than 150 members active across a range of technologies, they include both the providers and the users of energy equipment and services. Our members have particular expertise in heat networks, combined heat and power, demand side energy services including demand response and storage, and energy efficiency.

Department for Energy Security & Net Zero

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) is focused on the energy portfolio from the former Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)

E-On

Our core focus is to provide decentralised, green, and interconnected solutions that address the needs of our customers and those of the environment. We aim to lead the global shift towards new technology by working with our customers to be more sustainable at home, helping companies to reduce their business carbon footprint and across communities to build smart and sustainable cities.

Equans

EQUANS Urban Energy is the market leader in city centre district heating schemes providing heat, cooling and power to commercial, public sector and residential customers. With investment in district energy network of >£300m to date, we own or operate city centre scale schemes in seven cities. The Equans District Energy team have over 30 years’ experience in developing, delivering, and operating large heat and cooling networks. Our expertise spans the breadth of network development, delivery and operation and the full range of delivery models being used for heat network governance. We are committed to working with our partners in local authorities, large organisations, and businesses on their energy transition, as well as fulfilling our ambition to make net zero-carbon happen.

Hemiko

Hemiko invests in, designs, builds, operates and maintains district and communal heat networks. We are deploying £1bn of investment into town- and city-wide low carbon heat networks by 2030, working alongside communities, businesses and local authorities. We also provide metering and billing services, and consultancy services.

Metropolitan

At Metropolitan we’re committed to achieving efficient and sustainable heat network solutions for our customers across high-rise city living, and low-density, new build housing and mixed-use developments. We’re part of BUUK, the UK’s leading multi-utility infrastructure group, and offer heat networks as a stand-alone or as part of a complete multi-utility package.

SSE Enterprise

SSE are a leading generator of renewable electricity and one of the largest electricity network companies in the UK.

SSE Energy Solutions whole system approach accelerates the transition to net zero through localised, flexible infrastructure and connected services to invest in, design, develop, own and operate low carbon energy assets. This includes solar and storage, onshore and offshore wind, hydro power, electricity transmission and distribution grids as well as heat networks.

Switch 2

Switch2 is the UK’s most experienced and capable provider of end-to-end solutions for community and district heating schemes.

Switch2 offers products and services to serve the entire value chain of a heat network. This extends from the supply and manufacture of hardware (meters, heat interface units, automatic meter reading systems), installation and on-boarding, metering, billing and PAYG, operation and maintenance in properties and to energy centres and customer relationship management for residents.

Vattenfall

Working with developers, local authorities, and housing associations, Vattenfall Heat UK is driving the transition towards low-carbon heating. Vattenfall brings investment, unrivalled know-how, and a track record of experience to design and deliver large-scale, resilient district heating networks that achieve low-carbon heat, create jobs, and boost the local economy while delivering reliable heat to all customers. Serving 1.9 million customers on heat networks across Europe, we’re bringing the Vattenfall Heat experience to the UK and enabling fossil free living.

Veolia

Veolia Group aims to become the benchmark company for ecological transformation. Present on five continents with nearly 213,000 employees, the Group designs and deploys useful, practical solutions for the management of water, waste and energy that are contributing to a radical turnaround of the current situation. Through its three complementary activities, Veolia helps to develop access to resources, to preserve available resources and to renew them. In 2022, the Veolia group provided 111 million inhabitants with drinking water and 97 million with sanitation, produced nearly 44 million megawatt hours of electricity and recovered 61 million tonnes of waste.

Vital Energi

Vital Energi provide a comprehensive range of energy related services, systems, and solutions. With over 30 years’ experience, they have in-house capability to design, install, and operate decentralised energy generation and multi-utility network distribution schemes, including some of the UK’s largest and longest established district heating networks.