July 15 2025

The regeneration of Granton Waterfront is to be underpinned by a new energy centre to power ongoing commercial and residential development along the coast.

Key to unlocking the Net Zero goals, the energy centre will sit at the heart of a new district heating network that taps heat recovery from a large sewer running below the masterplan area.

Located close to Gasholder Park, the energy centre will be delivered concurrently with new housing on adjacent plots and replaces a former drainage basin. Set to become a key landmark on Waterfront Avenue, the design treats the energy centre and substation as a single building operated by Vattenfall to provide heating, hot water and electricity.

In a design statement, Smith Scott Mullan Associates wrote: "The key design strategy proposed is to split the energy centre’s overall mass into two visually-discreet elements - a heavy, solid basecourse wall at low level, and a much lighter and more permeable box-like enclosure floating above.

"The heavy basecourse element is proposed as a 3.6m high masonry wall wrapping around the full building. As well as visually grounding the building, this solid element offers a highly secure external finish to the energy centre, where immediately accessible to the public."

Incorporating projecting headers, soldier courses and in-built bench seats for visual interest, this wall is to be punctuated by tall, slot-like windows with a glazed entrance fronting a public square. 

1 Comment

#1 Posted by Lovely on 19 Jul 2025 at 08:27 AM

It would be interesting to find out what’s actually in this building.

Am sure the heat exchanger for the sewer, which is a great idea by the way, if it’s efficient enough to pay its own resource debt, would not take up so much space.

So is it perhaps some kind of battery farm in disguise given that people are realising these don’t work in sustainability terms and you would be a fool to live near to one of them?

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