Renewable energy Castle installs gasification boiler


T


he owners of Hever Castle in West Kent have installed a gasification boiler for the castle’s pavilion restau-


rant, as part of their commitment to become more environmentally friendly and replace old equipment with more energy efficient solutions. The boiler, a 50 kW LogWIN boiler from


Windhager, has been installed as part of a £500,000 project to update the castle, restaurant, shop and residential buildings. The old oil-fired and LPG boilers had pre- viously been providing heating and hot water at a cost of £100,000 per annum. The historic castle was the childhood


home of Anne Boleyn, second wife to King Henry VIII, and later passed into ownership of Henry’s fourth wife, Anne of Cleves. The owners have decided to shield themselves from rising fossil fuel prices


and to make the most of the surrounding woodland by installing the log gasifica- tion boiler, returning the castle to using its original method of heating using wood sourced from the grounds. Consulting engineers for the project, MCA, have been working with Hever Castle on a biomass district heating scheme for a number of years and specified the system from Windhager after using a system in a previ- ous project. The LogWIN model is the most techno-


logically advanced in its class in terms of output ranges and efficiency, with maxi- mum performance and cleaner burning ensured by a new down-firing technique, says Windhager. The unit has the largest filling chamber in its class of up to 226 litres, ensuring longer burning times, longer maintenance intervals and simple


The LogWIN system installed at the site


fuel replenishment without having to relight the boiler.


 www.windhager.co.uk Ground source heat pumps and solar thermal for academy K


ent’s Longfield Academy, a new building for 1,150 students due to open in June, is combining ground


source heat pumps with solar thermal technology to tap into heat above and below ground. The renewable technologies will work


in tandem to supply heating and hot water to the academy, together with pas- sive under-floor cooling in the summer months. This is projected to reduce the academy’s carbon dioxide emissions from its heating system by up to 40%. Both technologies are being supplied


and installed by ENER-G as part of a sus- tainable design brief set by main contrac- tor Carillion. The architect for the project is Jestico + Whiles, with mechanical servic- es provided by Halsion. The specialist science and arts academy


is situated on the site of the former Axton Chase School in Longfield, Kent. It is expected to achieve a minimum ‘Very Good’ rating under BREEAM for schools,


due to its use of renewable power sources and extensive use of insulation to secure a thermal performance 15% beyond cur- rent standards. ENER-G has installed 35 boreholes and is


in the process of completing work on the plant room to accommodate four ground source heat pumps with a combined capacity of 200 kW. The company is installing a total of 22 solar thermal tubes, covering 44m2 of the academy’s flat roof. Lee Marshall, Project Director for


ENER-G Sustainable Technologies ex- plained: ‘The fusion of these two renew- able technologies is used widely in countries such as Germany, but is not so well developed in the UK, and Longfield will help to lead the way.’ Heat pumps supply more energy than


they consume by using a refrigeration cycle to absorb heat from the environ- ment and raise it to a suitable level for heating buildings or providing hot water. The process can also operate in a reverse


An artist’s impression of the Longfield Academy


cycle to provide cooling. The government’s recently proposed Renewable Heat Incentive (see page 8) will guarantee subsidy payments over 20 years and dramatically reduce the payback period for organisations that install ground source heat pump and solar thermal technologies.


 www.energ.co.uk Enterprise centre installs low carbon heating A


n educational business venture near Towcester is now receiving low car- bon, low cost heating supplied by


an air source heat pump. The 5 kW Ecodan heat pump delivers low temperature heat- ing to the facility via under-floor piping. Ecodan harvests energy from the outdoor air, and for every 1 kW of electricity con- sumed, at least 3kW of heating is supplied to the property, says Mitsubishi. The SWAN Rural Enterprise Centre


which houses the unit is part of the SWAN 14–19 Partnership. The team took funding from the East Midlands Development Agency to create a full, professional chef’s kitchen situated alongside a working gar- den to offer students from 14 to 19 the chance to firstly grow and then receive


Energy World April 2011


professional instruction on how to cook their own fruit and vegetables. The prem- ises are located on a former farm, near Towcester, which has diversified into a business park. ‘We have fitted a polycarbonate panel


to show off the underfloor pipe work,’ said SWAN Commercial Sales Manager, Ray Paice. ‘The water tank was installed in the loft space of the single-storey building and we have also made the access panel trans- parent so that students can see the lit installation.’ The whole system was fitted by ACS Renewable Solutions, a Mitsubishi Electric- approved Ecodan installer which operates out of headquarters in Towcester and cov- ers most of the Midlands and East Anglia.


The former dairy and barn next door provides a connected space with a working room where up to 24 students can work on a project for the day. In addition, there are smaller working rooms and a SWAN office and conference room. ‘We wanted a heating system that pro-


vided the absolute comfort needed but made the least impact on both our oper- ating costs and our carbon footprint,’ said Sam Fitzgerald, SWAN Business Engage- ment Manager. ‘The beauty is that with the way ACS has installed it, the students can see and understand the elements involved.’





www.mitsubishielectric.co.uk/heating www.acsrenewables.co.uk


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