Rescuing an ailing biomass district heating system for the Rocks Green affordable housing development, Reheat achieved huge efficiency improvements and CO2 savings
- A 98.7% reduction in oil use compared to the average in previous years, resulting in 7.5 tonnes of CO2e saved annually
- The oil use reduction aligned with the increased use of biomass
- Improvements to the district heating system also meant a 25% reduction in biomass use, keeping fuel costs lower than they would otherwise have been
Rocks Green, located in Ludlow, Shropshire, is an affordable housing, shared-ownership development with 91 houses. The original development, commissioned by South Shropshire Housing Association, was designed with high environmental ratings in mind using a woodfuel district heating scheme.
Initially, the biomass district heating development was viewed as a success, winning a sustainable housing award in 2009 for a ‘sustainable large social housing project for new developments of more than 25 homes’.
However, in the years following the installation, issues started to arise with the system. As a result, the development owner, Connexus Group, incurred significant cost and frustration; dealing with biomass boiler failures, control system issues for Rock Green’s residents, who had raised concerns about heat being used even when they had turned it off.
As a result, Reheat was contracted by Briar (the principle contractor to Connexus) to perform an independent review of the biomass system and propose feasible solutions to regain the efficiencies of the heating system, this involved:
- In-depth inspection of the biomass plant room and fuel store
- Inspection of in-property interfaces
- Review of system performance and efficiencies using heat meter dataProduction of written specification for necessary remedial works
- This included a wide scope of options such as repairing the system replacing the system altogether, and the potential for air source heat pumps.
Connexus opted to undertake repair and replacement works to the biomass district heating system to maintain the housing development’s low carbon status. This included replacing the existing heat interface units in each of the 91 properties, repairs to the biomass boilers and upgrading the connectivity of the system in each property.
As a result, dramatic improvements have been seen in heating efficiency performance. Residents are better educated and more in control of their heating. Following the transformational work at Rocks Green, Reheat has also been successful in securing a heat supply contract for the biomass system.
