Launch: The District Heating Divas Heat Exchanger Mentoring Pilot was launched at the Connecting Women in District Heat conference in December 2019. The event in London had nearly 100 attendees.

Promotion: We primarily promoted the mentoring pilot through the District Heating Divas network for women in the sector.

Applications: We received 63 applications from potential mentors and mentees over two weeks in January 2020. The scheme is not exclusively open to women and we received applications from both men and women. We also received applications from across the UK and some from those who primarily work in Europe but with strong links to the UK.

Matches: Matching was undertaken in later January / early February 2020 with 27 pairs matched. Unfortunately we received more mentee applications than mentors and so we will not be able to match everyone, but signposted to other schemes such as Women’s Utilities Network and Regen’s Entrepreneurial Women in Renewable Energy (EWiRE) mentoring programme.

Results: The pilot ran for 10 months ending in December 2020. Feedback from participants was overwhelmingly positive with an average score of 4.3 out of 5 for successful matches. This, and a register of future interest, helped to demonstrate the demand to continue the scheme into 2021. The second phase of the scheme was launched on 10/12/2020.