Wood Energy’s innovative biomass boiler wins award
Wood Energy Ltd is delighted to announce the HMP Guys Marsh project, featuring its cutting-edge 'Binder Boiler' today received a commendation in the 'Best Renewable Energy Project' category at the South West Green Energy Awards 2010 (organised by ReGen SW). Wood Energy was asked to install a large and highly-automated wood chip biomass boiler at the prison earlier this year.
HMP Guys Marsh is a secure facility located near Shaftesbury in
Dorset and can accommodate up to 578 people. The prison already had
one operational biomass boiler which was previously installed by
Wood Energy in 2008; however, the majority of the campus was still
being heated with old and inefficient oil boilers. Wood Energy was
asked to install a second biomass boiler at the facility that would
be capable of using locally-sourced wood chip fuel to drastically
reduce the prison's carbon footprint. This second 'Binder' boiler
was installed by Wood Energy in September 2010.
Dr Robin Cotton, Founding Director of Wood Energy commented:
"Wood Energy is delighted that the HMP Guys Marsh project has
received this award. We believe the 1.2MW Binder boiler is not only
the largest biomass boiler plant to be installed in the South West
in 2010, but it is also the second largest biomass system currently
operating in the South West. The largest biomass boiler in the UK
is Kernock Plants, which is a 3MW Binder wood chip boiler system
and this was also installed by Wood Energy, in 2006. "The Binder
step-grate boiler is highly versatile as it can cope with a wide
range of wood chip - from dry wood chip of small particle size to
wet wood chip of large particle size, and everything in between.
This offers the client maximum choice when it comes to the
selection of fuel suppler as they are not restricted by a narrow
fuel specification and thus have greater leverage on
price."
The Binder Boiler is highly automated, which minimises the
required maintenance and cleaning of the boiler. A fully automatic
de-ashing system means that all of the ash is transported straight
to a container for removal. A highly sophisticated cleaning system
then uses high velocity air from the exhaust gas fan to ensure
maximum efficiency and means that the heat exchanger tubes only
need to be cleaned manually once a year.
In addition, the biomass boiler also has an innovative
above-ground wood fuel distribution system. Once the wood chip is
tipped into a hopper, the chips can be elevated by a fast vertical
screw and distributed evenly onto a walking floor mechanism. The
walking floor then pushes the wood chip towards the boiler. The
system is capable of moving 120m3 of wood chip per hour, which
means a 60m3 wood chip delivery can be emptied in half an
hour.
Notes to editors:
1. Wood Energy Ltd is the leading specialist supplier of high
efficiency automatic biomass heating systems throughout the UK and
Ireland. It is the distributor for Binder and Hargassner wood chip
and wood pellet boilers from 45kW to over 5MW, which provide heat,
hot water and steam for almost any application - from offices,
schools and hospitals to industrial processes.
2. Wood Energy is owned by the RES Group. RES is one of the
world's leading independent renewable energy project developers
with operations across Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific. At
the forefront of wind energy development for over 25 years, RES has
developed and/or built more than 5GW of wind energy capacity
worldwide. The RES Group is active in a range of renewable energy
technologies including large-scale biomass, solar, wave and tidal
and on-site renewable installations. For more information,
visit www.res-group.com.
3. Wood Energy offers unrivalled in-house design and technical
expertise and its team of skilled installation and commissioning
engineers has successfully installed over 250 projects representing
more than 67,000kW of renewable heating since 1992. For more
information, visit www.woodenergyltd.co.uk.
CONTACT FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
Neil Turner
Business Development Manager - RES On-Site Division
+44 (0)1923 608 167
+44 (0)7787 571 615
neil.turner@res-ltd.com
Kerry Cooper-Bradfield
Media Relations Manager, RES Group
+44 (0) 1923 299 490
+44 (0) 7766 495 788
kerry.cooper-bradfield@res-ltd.com
