Councillors have approved feasibility work for a low-carbon scheme to heat the Sovereign Leisure Centre by extracting energy from the local sewer system.
The proposal is for a standalone energy centre on the seafront site to meet the centre’s heat requirements and help achieve the council’s vision to deliver a carbon neutral town by 2030.
Councillor Jonathan Dow, Cabinet Member for the Environment, said: “This highly innovative scheme provides the opportunity to take a significant step towards reducing the town’s carbon footprint, which is a key facet of council projects and services.
“The energy centre would be built to cope with extra demand in the future and could be developed to provide heat for other types of development, giving the scheme flexibility and the potential for significantly reduced running costs.”
The system would comprise two heat pumps which together will be able to meet the varying demands of the leisure centre.
The proposal would be to obtain heat by taking the liquid sewage from the nearby underground main sewer and passing it over a heat exchanger which extracts this heat and transfers it to where it is needed.
Following Cabinet's approval, feasibility and design work will now be carried out.
The feasibility work will be delivered through Clear Sustainable Futures (CSF), a procurement and delivery framework between Eastbourne Borough Council, Lewes District Council, AECOM and Robertson.
