Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the potential contribution of waste heat capture to the decarbonisation of heat supply.

Waste heat capture can play an important part in the decarbonisation of heat, specifically when used in heat networks. In its 2015 assessment the Committee on Climate Change suggested that waste-heat recovery should be contributing a third of heat supply to heat networks by 2050 in order to meet our net-zero target.

The Government recognises that waste-heat is a cost-effective form of low-carbon heat. In the Budget on 11^th March the Chancellor announced a new £270m Green Heat Network Fund. This will fund large-heat pumps, solar thermal installations and waste-heat recovery in heat networks between 2022 and 2025; and we will be consulting later this year on scheme design.