[chris (OP)]

The city of Leeds is setting up a heat distribution system that will send waste heat - via hot water - from an incinerator plant to local homes. This is being billed as a big step forward and an advance in cleaner, greener, more sustainable living.

https://www.ukconstructionmedia.co.uk/news/launch-leeds-heat-network/

But I remember my Dad doing an Open University course in the early 1990s on combined heat and power infrastructure, and a woman studying with me in Cambridge in the mid 90s was from Moscow where she said this sort of shared heat infrastructure was the norm - and great until it broke down...

[Colin2B]

I seem to recall that this is also done in Canada & Alaska.
West Dean College nr Chichester uses waste wood to heat the campus.

[alancalverd]

Standard practice in Sweden. Power stations get rid of waste heat principally by supplying free domestic hot water. (They also supply 3-phase power to most houses, making  high load distribution for cookers and washing machines more efficient if somewhat difficult for other European manufacturers to compete).

I think one of the earliest Combined Heat and Power installations was in London where a power station (Battersea? Lots Road) on the south side of the Thames supplied heat to a block of luxury flats (Dolphin Square?) on the north side from the 1930s to the 1960s.

[wolfekeeper]

Well, for comparison, solar power was invented in 1839 and wind power in 1887, there's nothing new under the sun!

[Bored chemist]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheffield_EfW_Plant

[Bored chemist]

Well, for comparison, solar power was invented in 1839 and wind power in 1887

I think wind power might be older than that.
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/constable-a-windmill-near-brighton-n02657
Or even

[wolfekeeper]

FAKE NEWS

[chris (OP)]

making  high load distribution for cookers and washing machines more efficient

Why's that? What are the advantages?