The decision to use biomass heating systems fueled by a Welshpool company in schools is helping Powys County Council meet stringent low-carbon standards .
To date the council has installed a number of Ökofen wood pellet boilers supplied by Organic Energy of Welshpool with more planned.
One such installation is Llanrhaeadr YM Mochnant Primary School where a new 850m² school replaces the old Victorian building and provides primary education for approximately 70 children. In addition to photo voltaic cells and solar thermal collectors two Ökofen 56kW automatic wood pellet boilers were specified to supply all the heating to the school.
Senior Mechanical Engineer for Powys County Council, Andrew Billingsley explains how the boilers contributed to the overall design: “The Ökofen boilers make compliance with Part L building regulations and BREEAM requirements straightforward.
"We looked at ground source heating and high efficiency oil/gas boilers, but in the context of SBEM carbon calculations, using biomass offers a significant advantage. The system has much lower carbon emissions and for the overall scheme that makes compliance easier.”
The boilers also scored well in terms of performance and efficiency, as Andrew Billingsley adds: “We have previously installed a standby fossil-fuel boiler but with the Llanrhaeadr YM Mochnant School we decided to install just the Ökofen boilers with no standby and they have proved reliable and easy to maintain. We also get good local service from Organic Energy.”
The Ökofen boilers are fuelled by wood pellets, manufactured from clean dry wood waste such as wood shavings and sawdust, which is broken up, passed through a press and as the temperature rises to around 120oC the lignin that naturally occurs in wood plasticises and bonds the material resulting in a high density pellet with a hard glossy outer coating which characterises high quality wood pellets.
The boilers are fully automated and depending on usage require re-fuelling as little as once every 12 months. Efficient combustion is achieved by de-gasifying the fuel inside the boiler as part of its triple combustion process the automatic cleaning system maintains high boiler efficiency.