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SUSTAINABILITY


Ireland’s northernmost four-star hotel leads with bold low-carbon upgrades


Ireland-based four-star hotel, the Ballyliffin Lodge and Spa (Ballyliffin Lodge) is dedicated to preserving the natural beauty of its surroundings, as further evidenced by its use of green technologies to heat, water and power its 40 rooms, spa, gym and restaurant


all components. This includes pipework, which is extremely important on projects of this kind. We’ve had a long and solid relationship with REHAU to connect offsite plantrooms to buildings.” REHAU’s RAUTHERMEX bonded pipe system


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teps taken to achieve this aim include installing a large 288kW solar array to the rear of the hotel and commissioning a


natural spring well to reduce water usage and mains consumption. Yet one of Ballyliffin Lodge’s most ambitious projects involved upgrading its heating system to include a 500kW, biomass boiler, burning woodchips to supply its heating and hot water needs.


Reducing carbon, reducing costs


Supported by a €450,000 investment and grants from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland’s Support Scheme for Renewable Heat, this project is crucial to the hotel’s goals of adopting greener practices and reducing operating costs. With Ireland’s carbon tax set to rise annually from €56 per tonne of CO2 at present, to €100 per tonne by 2030, installing a boiler that would save up to 250 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually made clear commercial sense for the hotel. “We’re in an area of stunning natural beauty and


protecting and maintaining that is very important,” says Ron Kerrigan, hotel general manager for Ballyliffin Lodge and Spa. “It’s very cost-effective to carry out these sorts of initiatives, and the installation of this boiler would improve the hotel’s efficiency throughout. “People not in the know would think ‘oh, you’re cutting down trees, you’re cutting down forests, how does that work?’ But it’s a renewable source of heat and energy, and the trees go through an eight-year life cycle, so as quick as we’re cutting them, we’re also planting them, preserving and maintaining the local area’s greenery.”


Making molehills out of mountains


To carry out this project, Ballyliffin Lodge engaged the services of CHP Mechanical Services, a County Down-based renewable energy and commercial heating installer specialising in Biomass boiler installations including off-site prefabricated plant


consists of a polyurethane foam insulation core and a corrugated outer jacket that keeps operational heat losses particularly low. Its fine-pored PU foam, developed using specialist process technology, offers high thermal insulation, making it ideal for linking Ballyliffin Lodge’s buildings to the boiler plantroom a kilometre away


rooms. The need to preserve the peninsula’s pristine environment meant this expertise was a priority, as the existing building proposed to house the boiler was situated a kilometre away from the hotel – in this case, on the side of a nearby mountain. Faced with this challenge, the team at CHP Mechanical Services specified a Herz Firematic 499kw Biomass Boiler with a 50m³ adjoining space within the building from which woodchips are transferred via a spring agitator and screw conveyor. In order to efficiently transfer heat from the plant room to Ballyliffin Lodge’s buildings without disrupting the local landscape, CHP Mechanical Services needed suitable underground pre-insulated pipework that could offer excellent thermal performance. The distance from the hotel presented other


logistical concerns. With no roads going up the side of the mountain to the biomass boiler plant room, and very few in the local area at all, the specified pipework needed to be lightweight and flexible. As the hotel’s operations could not be interrupted, a final requirement for the pipework was speed of installation to ensure there wasn’t any downtime.


Enduring supply chain relationships


“The nature of Ballyliffin Lodge’s business and location presented clear challenges for this particular project,” says John Smyth, managing director of CHP Mechanical Services. “After all, if you can’t transfer its heat effectively through its pipes, it doesn’t matter how effective and sustainable your boiler is. “We’ve been installing this kind of system for


over 13 years, so we know the importance of only working with proven, reliable manufacturers for


Making a connection


Alongside its thermal performance benefits, RAUTHERMEX’s connection technology, EVERLOC, offered a level of ease of installation and reliability for CHP Mechanical Services. It uses a compression sleeve to create a permanently leak-tight connection between the pipe and the fitting, with no O-rings or other sealants, producing an independently certified cavity-free joint. As the pipe itself is the sealant, the installation is immediately ready for pressure and a simple visual inspection is sufficient to know if the connection is complete. For projects such as Ballyliffin Lodge where swift


installation over long distances of pipework is key, this ability to quickly and comprehensively fit and inspect a flexible pipe system is invaluable.


Empowering businesses to go green


With these complex logistics in mind, Mark Thompson, area sales manager for REHAU Building Solutions Northern Ireland & Republic of Ireland, was also on hand to ensure the project’s smooth running. With the boiler now installed and running, the success of Ballyliffin Lodge’s uniquely complex works has resulted in further enquiries from other hotels in Ireland. Ballyliffin Lodge was shortlisted as a finalist for the 2024 edition of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland’s Energy Awards. “The rising carbon tax is definitely focusing minds


for businesses such as hotels,” he explains. “As the works at Ballyliffin Lodge show, transitioning to greener heating systems is a sensible commercial decision.


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