BRYNAMMAN DISTRICT HEATING SCHEME

An Assessment Of A Proposed Wood Fuel Community Heating Installation In Brynamman.  This report and subsequent project development work by Sundance Renewables led to a planning application being submitted and approved.

Introduction

This report has been commissioned by Awel Aman Tawe to consider the feasibility of incorporating a wood fuel boiler to run a small community heating network at a new development of 14-16 bungalows in Brynamman.

'Micro-net' systems such as this are common for wood heating schemes in countries such as Austria or Denmark where they are used to avoid the high costs associated with full-blown community heating whilst at the same time creating sufficient aggregation of heat loads to give economies of scale and the critical mass that justify the provision of a centralised wood boiler plant.

The viability of using any biomass fired community heating network to service the heating requirement of these buildings needs to focus on the availability and security of fuel, the environmental aspects of the scheme and an estimate of capital and running costs.

The bungalows are being built to high standards of insulation with the addition of roof integrated solar hot panels on each bungalow.

At Heol Y Gelynen, an opportunity exists to develop a small district heating scheme using wood fuel – one of the first in Wales.  14 new bungalows are being developed and meetings with the future residents have indicated support for the scheme.  The development is for a single boiler using local woodchip.  Hot water from the boiler will pass in insulated underground pipes to each of the houses and link directly to their radiators / hot water tanks.  The boiler and wood-fuel store will be housed in a single standard 20 ft. container.  

A back-up oil-fired boiler will also be provided in the event of failure of the woodchip boiler, although it is not envisaged that this boiler will be regularly used.  The back-up boiler will be housed in a separate, smaller container and will include a 1000 litre oil tank.  The containers and tank will be fenced.

The Boiler

Talbott's Ltd are a UK manufacturer and have over 3000 boiler installations world wide. Their products are well proven over the last 20 years of manufacture.

Study undertaken with co-operation from Family Housing Association (Wales) Ltd and the Bruce Boucher Consultancy.