The owners of Greetham Valley hotel and Golf Club decided that it was the time to consider an alternative fuel heating system for their business. The rising cost of oil combined with their desire to install a ‘carbon neutral’ system were the main considerations in coming to this decision.
Having looked at all the options, they decided that wood fuel heating would be the most practical. Woodchip was available locally. The owners of the Greetham Valley Hotel had also decided to use the Eco Link system to provide heating and hot water to ten new log cabins to be erected on the site, the 300 kw wood chip boiler supplies heat for the 40 bedroom hotel 10 log cabins, 2 houses and the 15,000sqf golf club
The Eco Link system offers the highest levels of automation. With an automated wood-chip system the positioning of the fuel store needs to be adjacent to the boiler room. The positioning of this store is important as fuel deliveries need to be as simple as possible and will often dictate the positioning of the boiler room within the site. A simple method of unloading the fuel will result in a reduction of fuel costs as it removes the need for specialist equipment.
The use of pre-insulated heat transfer mains facilitates the heating of a network of properties from one central boiler. This is well suited to biomass systems where the cost of a boiler can be far greater than that of a traditionally fuelled alternative. District heating networks with a close grouping of heated units, as in this case, can significantly reduce the capital cost per property. The intensity of heat load placed on the boiler is greater due to system diversity, allowing more efficient boiler operation. This, together with much reduced fuel cost per kilowatt hour (kWh) leads to significant savings.
The automation of fuel feeding allows the boiler to increase or reduce the amount of fuel it burns to match demand, enabling better fuel economy.
