Warwickshire News Mine

Wood fuelled heating is the most widespread renewable energy in Europe and a `Biomass Event’ taking place today at Warwickshire College in Moreton Morrell is identifying why it should be coming to Warwickshire.

Dr Jacky Lawrence, Warwickshire County Council’s Strategic Energy Manager, explains: “Wood fuel is generally competitive with most conventional fossil fuels such as coal, oil or natural gas. Overall, wood heating offers perhaps the most cost-effective route to developing renewable energy and can be cheaper than many energy conservation measures for reducing fossil carbon emissions.

“Wood fuel is a renewable energy source. When wood is burned it only puts back into the atmosphere the carbon dioxide (CO2) it absorbed when growing. Wood fuel is therefore carbon neutral, unlike coal, oil and gas, which release fossil carbon when they are burnt, causing global warming. Allowing for emissions of CO2 in planting, harvesting, processing and transporting the fuel, replacing fossil fuels with wood fuel will typically reduce emissions by up to 90 per cent.”

A number of sites have been identified around Warwickshire as both physically and economically suitable for biomass heating systems.

For example, installing a biomass boiler at the Bedworth Civic Hall would cost £42,500, but the cost would be recouped in five years with £9,463 per year fuel bill savings. Plus there would be a reduction of 90 tonnes in CO2 emitted each year as a result of heating the Civic Hall.

Similarly the cost of installing a system at Kingsbury Water Park would be recouped in seven years and there would be a reduction of 60 tonnes of CO2 currently being emitted.

Or installing a system at St John’s Museum in Warwick would take eight years to recoup the cost before saving money, and immediately save 52 tonnes a year being emitted in CO2.

Information is today being presented to many organisations on the benefits of biomass heating. There will also be representatives of the National Farmers Union present.

Dr Jacky Lawrence said there is a currently a `chicken and egg’ situation where there is a shortage of wood fuel providers, because there is not the demand because no one has wood fuel boilers.

She said: “As an aid and support to those considering biomass installations, it is suggested that the next step to moving forward could be to set up a local support group to share and mentor opportunities. This group should involve a potential wood fuel provider so that the chicken and egg cycle of no fuel provider, no boilers installed can be broken.”

Link to WCC