Bioenergy Implementation Plan - South-East Regional Authority

8.1.2. Medium-Scale Heating Boilers, Wood-Fuel Fired
Medium-scale boilers based on wood chips in the range of 30 kW to 1 MW can be utilised by the commercial sector and
in smaller industries for the generation of heat. The installation of these boilers is supported and encouraged by the SEI
ReHeat Deployment Programme. The levels of grant assistance available for biomass boilers are outlined in Chapter 3.
Within the South-East Region, a number of institutions and private businesses have switched to wood fuelled systems
for the provision of space and hot water heating. The main driving forces for these projects were increasing fossil fuel
costs and a desire by the owners to predict their energy costs more accurately. Other advantages of bioenergy heating
systems are the decreased CO2 emissions and a decrease in sulphur emissions. A selection of these projects is presented
in Appendix 2.
8.1.3. Large Scale Heating Boiler / Plant, Wood-Fuel Fired
Large scale biomass fired boilers can be installed in large industries or in district heating plants.
A district heating plant produces heat which is distributed to an established district heating system. Biomass district
heating plants can either replace oil or coal fired plants or be established in combination with existing systems. This
section considers solely wood chip fired heating plants. These district heating boilers generally have a capacity of 1 – 50
MW and an availability factor of 96-98%. Average distribution loss is generally about 28%. The viability of such
a system depends on different criteria such as the population density and the heat demand.
Figure 8.1 shows an example of a district heating plant which is located in Denmark. The list below gives a short
introduction to the main components which normally are included in all systems.
Figure 8.1: Example of a District Heating Plant in Thyboroen, Denmark ( 35 )
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south-east regional authority
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