Issued by the Ashden Awards - Biomass heats up Barnsley - Heating from Tree Waste

The biggest implementation of biomass heating for community housing in the UK, replacing coal with waste wood and saving nearly 3,000 tonnes of carbon emissions a year.

Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council has taken the bold step of implementing the largest programme of biomass-fired community heating in the country. The impressive savings in energy and consequent reduction in carbon emissions has set an example to local authorities across the country; achieving 40% reduced CO2 emissions by 2005 and aiming for 60% by 2010.

Concerned about the future supply of fossil fuels and the need to drastically reduce carbon emissions, in June 2004 Barnsley Council adopted a 'Biomass Implementation Policy' that commits the council to pursuing biomass as the preferred form of heat energy in all new and refurbished public buildings as long as the lifetime costs are favourable.
The council's commitment to biomass as a way of generating heat has seen the replacement of old coal boilers in council buildings as well as the establishment of a 700-tonne capacity wood chip store where tree waste, otherwise destined for landfill sites, is brought to dry naturally.

The woodchip store now supplies various council buildings, including the Smithies Lane Depot, an industrial site whose old coal-fired boiler was replaced by a 500 kW wood chip boiler. The residue goes to another community housing site at Sheffield Road where two linked woodchip boilers (320 and 150kW) have replaced the old coal-fired boilers. It will also supply other sites as they come on stream.

The initiative has helped kick-start a woodchip supply business in South Yorkshire. Wood for the scheme is supplied weekly by Silvapower Ltd, a new South Yorkshire woodchip business using over 350 tonnes a year of sawmill slab wood and forestry waste.

As Robin Ridley of South Yorkshire Forest Partnership explains: "What the Council's done is going to bring more woodland in South Yorkshire into active management. We're closing the loop, reaching a critical mass of boilers so the likes of Silvapower becomes a self-financing business."

The council has also spearheaded a new initiative that allows householders to regulate and pay directly for their own heating generated by biomass. Tenants at Sheffield Road are full of praise for the scheme and also pleased with the reduction of smoke and noise (they used to suffer from the noisy coal deliveries) and the cheaper heating they now enjoy: "The coal, it used to spew fumes out. The balcony used to be three inches thick! And now I'm saving pounds! I can go on holidays", says Mrs Brady, a tenant in the Sheffield Road flats.

Biomass is not only being proposed as an alternative to coal-fired boilers but also to gas heating. The Council's new HQ at Westgate, for example, will use a 500 kW woodchip boiler instead of gas to provide heating for the offices during the day. It is also planned to use the boiler at night to heat thermal storage vessels in the nearby Town Hall and Library as part of a new 'Civic Centre District Heating Scheme', which will replace existing electric heating.

Predicted savings from these schemes are impressive:

Sheffield Road - tenants say that their heating bills have halved with over 1,300 tonnes of CO2 emissions predicted to be saved annually;
Council HQ - using biomass rather than gas is expected to save around 270 tonnes of CO2 a year rising to over 400 when the Civic Centre is completed;
Smithies Depot - primary energy will be reduced by 50%, saving over 350 tonnes of CO2 a year;
Barnsley MBC had already reduced CO2 emissions from its estate (350 buildings) by 40% on 1990 levels by 2005. The biomass heating schemes are part of their aim for 60% cuts in CO2 by 2010 (40 years ahead of government targets). The total CO2 savings from the biomass programme are almost 3,000 tonnes per annum.

The next phase of the programme includes installing a second boiler at the Council HQ and building a new Digital Media Centre heated by a 320 kW woodchip boiler which will be completed in September 2008.

The Ashden Award prize money would be used to set up a new centre to demonstrate renewable technologies and promote their benefits to the general public, companies and others.

ENDS

Issued by Gaz Gerrard, Press Office, Tel: (01226) 773443
Email: garygerrard@barnsley.gov.uk