ABOUT GENERATION 7

We are engineers who think in communities, not components.

If you are here, you are probably wrestling with big questions. How do we decarbonise this estate and still keep people comfortable? How do we spend public money wisely? How do we design systems that still make sense in twenty years, not just in year one?

Generation 7 is an energy systems studio built for those questions. We help public bodies and estate teams design heating and cooling that works in the real world for people, budgets and the planet.

Energy systems studio Infrastructure engineers Think and do tank
What we do

We reframe heating and cooling from a compliance problem into a systems opportunity. From strategy and briefs to detailed design and optimisation, we help you see how heat really moves through buildings, budgets, behaviours and policy, then design it better.

What you get

Clear, honest options. Designs that stay robust under pressure and over time. Evidence that stands up to scrutiny. And a partner who can explain complex systems in ways that make sense to boards, clinicians, residents, councillors and communities.

HOW WE SHOW UP
Energy systems studio
Strategy that lives in the real world
We join the dots between policy, plant rooms and people on the ground. From net zero roadmaps to estate wide heat strategies, we help you move from “we should” to “this is the plan and here is why it works”.
Think and do tank
Better briefs for a better world
We sit alongside public teams to reshape briefs, governance and funding cases so your projects are set up to succeed. Less box ticking, more clarity. Less jargon, more shared understanding of what good looks like.
Infrastructure engineers
Design that works under pressure
We design and stress test heat networks and decarbonisation schemes so they keep performing long after the ribbon cutting. Robust hydraulics, pragmatic phasing and drawings that contractors can actually build from.
WHAT WE BELIEVE

Underneath the drawings and models, Generation 7 is built on a simple idea: heat should serve life, not siphon from it. Everything we do, from the way we brief a project to the way we test a pipe temperature, flows from a few core beliefs.

Belonging creates better systems
When people feel seen and heard, from clinicians and caretakers to residents and operators, we get better insights and better decisions. Good engineering is social as well as technical.
Coherence beats complexity
Estates, policies and funding streams are already complex enough. Our job is to create coherence, making sure strategies, kit and operations all pull in the same direction.
Creativity is not optional
The transition to low carbon heat is not a copy and paste exercise. Every place has quirks, constraints and hidden opportunities. We treat constraints as creative fuel.
Better briefs, better worlds
Most of the opportunity sits in the brief. We invest early in questions, framing and alignment so that by the time drawings exist, everyone knows what they are really for and who they are meant to serve.
WHERE THIS CAME FROM
From a mountain village to major estates

Generation 7’s founder, Oliver Riley, became an engineer because he loved making things work and, if possible, making them sing. Two decades ago, that curiosity took him to a remote highland community in the Philippines, helping design a small hydropower system to mill rice.

What stayed with him was not just the machinery. It was the way the community related to each other and to the land: tough, generous, resourceful, wasting nothing and giving a lot back. Heat, water and labour were all part of one living system. Generation 7 exists because that way of thinking about energy feels like the future we need, not the past we left behind.

Generation 7 today

Since then, Oliver has spent more than 25 years working on energy, heat networks and decarbonisation for hospitals, housing, campuses and government estates. Generation 7 brings that experience, and that early lesson in interdependence, to the UK heat transition.

The name comes from the idea of thinking seven generations ahead. We design systems so that future teams, future residents and future budgets will be glad you did this work the way you did.

25+ years in heat networks Decarbonisation and strategy Fifth generation thinking
OUR TRACK RECORD

We quietly sit right in the middle of some of the UK’s most significant decarbonisation and heat network work:

Kingston University Hospital
Low temperature heat pump and de steaming design cutting emissions by 25 percent.
UK Parliament
Energy and resilience strategy shaping the future of the Parliamentary estate.
Defence Infrastructure Organisation
Decarbonisation pathway for a government estate with a £360m annual energy footprint.
Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS)
Engineering that unlocked £150m+ in funded heat pump upgrades for hospitals and public buildings.
SDEN heat network
Five year design assurance ensuring performance, reliability and financial viability.
GreenSCIES II (Innovate UK)
Fifth generation district heating drawing energy from transport and data centres.
Housing providers including L&Q, A2Dominion
Heat pump retrofit strategies, network optimisation and investment ready decarb roadmaps.
25 years of experience. Hundreds of buildings. Multiple high stakes estates. Zero bullshit.
If you are responsible for heat, we are on your side.
Whether you are working towards net zero commitments or running a campus that has always just worked this way, we can help you see the whole system and design a path that makes sense technically, financially and humanly.
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