New Energy World™
New Energy World™ embraces the whole energy industry as it connects and converges to address the decarbonisation challenge. It covers progress being made across the industry, from the dynamics under way to reduce emissions in oil and gas, through improvements to the efficiency of energy conversion and use, to cutting-edge initiatives in renewable and low-carbon technologies.
Electrifying the River Thames
3/11/2026
8 min read
Feature
The River Thames remains pivotal to London’s commerce and transportation: it accounts for most of the UK’s inland waterway traffic and Thames passenger numbers have more than doubled in the past decade. This leads to environmental pressures and a new way of regarding the river as a conduit for energy, or even as an energy source itself, writes Toby Clark.
Recent studies have investigated the prospects of electric power for all the river’s transportation, and alternative fuels such as hydrogen for specialist vessels, while multiple projects aim to transfer surplus heat energy along, beside or even underneath the river.
A 2015 study estimated that the Thames could provide as much as 444MW in heat energy to be abstracted by water source heat pumps, providing just over 3TWh of energy across a year. While this looks like a large number, in fact it would only supply around 5% of London’s total heat demand. But much more could come from the waste heat of industrial processes, typically sited further east along the Thames.
Strategic heat main
The London Strategic Heat Main (LSHM) is a proposed pipeline intended to transport heat from low-carbon sources on the Thames estuary into central London, supplying local district heat networks for residential and business use. The scheme has just been awarded £41.6mn of government money through the Green Heat Network Fund.