Exploring Bristol's Heat Network (2025)
Vattenfall is the heat network partner in Bristol City Leap, the twenty-year partnership to make the city's energy infrastructure carbon neutral by 2030, and its Castle Park Energy Centre runs England's largest harbour-based water-source heat pump, taking heat from the Floating Harbour to warm homes and businesses across the city. Demand for tours of the energy centre had become more than the team could meet, so Vattenfall asked us for a film that could stand in for the tour: an explainer for businesses, residents and anyone interested in how the district heat network works, how heat is drawn from the harbour, and how the network is growing across Bristol.
We filmed inside the energy centre, at the substations and around the harbour, and from the air, a larger drone shoot planned and flown safely from Bristol's tallest building across the city, with graphics for the parts of the process a camera cannot see. We are working with Vattenfall again in 2026 on a photography commission.
The film sits in a body of energy and climate work that includes Retrofit West and Energising Britain for the West of England Combined Authority and five years with ZeroAvia; see also our climate change and environment films.
