Barnsley MBC, UK, District biomass heating from local tree waste - Ashden Award winner

This video can be downloaded here: http://www.ashdenawards.org/winners/barnsley Barnsley MBC won an Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy in 2006.

You can follow us on:
Facebook http://bit.ly/9GKbIM
Twitter http://twitter.com/AshdenAwards
Blog: http://www.ashdenawards.org/blog/latest

Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council (MBC) has installed nearly 1 MW of wood-chip boilers in council flats and buildings. A further 800 kW is currently being commissioned and more planned, and it has set up a supply chain to produce wood-chip from council tree-waste.

Barnsley is situated in an old coal-mining area: many residents used to be employed as miners and many properties are still heated by coal-fired boilers. The Council disposes of many tonnes of wood waste from its parks and gardens each year. In June 2004, Barnsley MBC adopted a Biomass Implementation Policy, committing it to considering biomass heating systems for all new and refurbished buildings. It has already completed a 470 kW wood-fuelled district heating scheme for 166 flats, and a 500 kW scheme for the council depot. Both of these replaced old coal boilers, but the next scheme will use 800 kW of wood-fuelled district heating in new office buildings, in preference to gas. This work has enabled a small wood-chip supply business to start up, and Barnsley MBC is also starting its own wood-chip supply from Council waste. There is plenty of scope to go further, with 133 coal boilers still in place in Council-owned properties; and significant further potential for local wood supply from forestry management and coppice

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Barnsley
• District
• Council
• yorkshire
• heating
• boiler
• local
• tree
• waste
• biomass
• ashden
• awards
• sustainable
• renewable
• energy

[jamesdiddy1]

what about biomass pellets, i make my own pellets from leaves and grass clippings, could this system perform as well with biomass pellets as it does with wood chips

[AshdenAwards]

@jamesdiddy1 Yes, you certainly can use pellets, but they're usually made from wood. How do you make and use yours made from grass and leaves?

[jamesdiddy1]

@AshdenAwards i just run the leaves and clippings throu a mulcher and depending on how wet or dry the material is i add or subtract dry or wet material then i run the mixture throu a pellet machine, i jus use them in a pellet stove to heat the home in winter,i was asking cause if something like that could run an entire building it could b used to power a town or more and giving where i live there is a lot of open land with plenty of very grassy plains that could b havested for that

[AshdenAwards]

@jamesdiddy1 Intersting. I'm not sure all boilers can cope with leaves, due to the different chemical make-up compared to wood. Certainly worth looking at though.

[steveeo1]

this idea is briliant iam a tree surgion myself and we struggle to get rid of the wood chip waste a lot of the time In wich somtimes just goes to waste

[AshdenAwards]

Did you look at our other video, Bioregional? They set up a "tree station" in Croydon for tree surgeons to bring their waste to, and it all gets converted to wood fuel.

[AshdenAwards]

The wood they're burning is mostly from tree surgery and other work that's being done anyway, so if the wood wasn't being burned it would be going to landfill - this way some useful energy is recovered and fossil fuel use reduced.

Also, trees grow continuously, and as long as the wood is only harvested up to the rate the trees are growing at, then you can keep going for ever. This is especially true if the trees are coppiced, as then they grow back far more rapidly than normal.

[s16100]

I have one question for you? You are relighing on wood. What happens in a few years when your wood supply is gone? I thought the idea was to use fuels that would not use up the tree's?