Biomass Boilers

GASTEC at CRE (GaC)

Carbon Trust - Biomass Site Monitoring Programme

As part of the Carbon Trust’s “Biomass Heat Accelerator” [BHA] Programme, GaC has been contracted to install monitoring equipment at a number of sites, and to assess plant performance over the course of a year.

The broad aim of this BHA Project is to help make the UK biomass heat market self-sustaining by reducing costs and addressing supply chain risks. The project aims to work with existing and new sites to (a) develop benchmarks from robust case studies, (b) identify and demonstrate cost reductions, and (c) raise awareness amongst end users and other stakeholders.

The specific objectives of the Biomass Site Monitoring Programme are:-
  • Measure the performance of a range of existing biomass combustion installations
  • Understand any issues which may be associated with plant use
  • Recommend methods of encouraging optimum performance of biomass plant
The boilers are spread across the UK and are all operating on wood (either wood pellets or wood chips). They range in size from 100kW (at a small hotel) to 3MW (at a plant nursery).

The Carbon Trust has split the work into 2 streams:-

Site Monitoring
The Carbon Trust wishes to monitor a number of biomass boiler installations at sites across the UK. Specifically the project wishes to capture key insights relating to:-
  • Total system efficiencies (biomass boiler and integration within a heating system including accumulator, and back-up fossil fuel boiler) and the actual biomass boiler efficiency.
  • Fuel quality and use
  • Attendance issues
The site monitoring will continue through the course of one year.

Heat Meter Installation
In parallel, the Carbon Trust wishes to install heat meters at a number of sites using biomass boilers.

The Carbon Trust chose to use GaC to carry out this work because of our track record of producing validated data from field trials, and our unrivalled experience of biomass boilers.