Wood pellets is used to heat six public buildings in the small town of Hällaryd.
In the small town Hällaryd there is a small district heating system for six buildings. The plant at Hällaryd School is a production plant for biofuel-based heating. Hällaryd school is a primary school for pre-school class through grade six.
The municipality of Karlshamn wanted to replace all heating based on oil in their own buildings. In the city of Karlshamn there is district heating based om excess heat from an paper mill. But they had to find another solution for their buildings in Hällaryd.
The small heating plant has an effect of 1300 kW an it is heated with wood pellets. The pellets are made of residues from furniture industries, carpentry business and sawmills in the region. It is important that the pellets have a good quality in order to avoid disturbances in operation.
The boiler room is situated in the basement in one of the school buildings. Since the municipality owns several nearby buildings the biofueled heating system not only gives heat for self-consumption in the school but also for the other municipal buildings. The heating system provides heat to six nearby buildings, school buildings, home for elderly, the old Town hall and an apartment building.
The new heating system also means an energy saving of about 30%/year compared with previous heating. The pellet plant has replaced the previous heating with oil.
Resources needed
The investment cost was 656 700 € including central heating, piping and customer centers. They got about 130 000 Euro of the cost as a national grant . De paybacktime is about 20 years, due to new network. If they only had installed a boiler for the school the paybacktime would have been shorter.
Evidence of success
The plant produced 1296 MWh (in 2016). They used 270 tonnes of pellets to produce the heat for the six buildings. The emissions of CO2 decreased with about 500 tonnes/year.
Difficulties encountered
An experience from the project is that it is important to choose a high quality of pellets. Cheaper pellets may contain other impurities, which can cause clumps and lead to disturbance in the operation of the facility. But clean wood pellets, the plant works very well.
Potential for learning or transfer
This type of biofuel production facility fits very well when there are one or several nearby buildings that have a heating requirement.
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