A golf club has increased its green credentials having installed a Windhager biomass boiler to provide heating for the club facilities and the adjacent Manor House Hotel. The Manor House Golf Club is situated in the Cotswold countryside overlooking the Castle Combe valley and provides 5 star accommodation as part of The Exclusive Hotels Group.
As part of a green initiative the company replaced its existing oil heating with a Windhager BioWIN wood pellet boiler system. The club will not only significantly reduce its carbon footprint but is set to save 52% a year on fuel bills and generate an annual £14,000 from RHI (Renewable Heat Incentive).
The Manor House Golf Club found, like many other businesses, that its current oil heating system was inefficient and proving extremely costly as fuel prices steadily rise and maintenance becomes a more regular necessity. The Exclusive Hotels Group has its own environmental agenda called ‘Exclusively Green’ with which they aim to reduce the impact the business has on the environment. This initiative has already seen the Manor House Hotel and Golf Club purchase all electricity from 100% renewable sources such as wind farms. This desire to improve energy consumption instigated research into alternative heating options of which biomass was deemed the most attractive for the golf club.
The oil heating system was costing on average £13,000 a year in fuel alone, using 20,000 litres of oil to heat the whole building, which includes accommodation, restaurant, bars and changing facilities. In contrast, the biomass boiler system installed will save around £6,500 in fuel a year for the club while increasing boiler efficiency to 92%. Combined with the significant payback the business will receive through the government’s RHI scheme, moving to the greener alternative was an easy choice to make.
Managing director of the group, Danny Pecorelli commented: “We’ve made many decisions across the business to spend more on certain items which fit our green criteria. The green agenda is our number one priority, but having said that, in this case biomass has also helped us to reduce our overall utilities’ costs.”
The installation comprised two 60 kW Windhager BioWIN Excel wood pellet boilers in a cascade system, suitable for situations where a large and varying output is required. The BioWin Excel boilers feature wide modulating output ranges to consistently provide maximum efficiency and the cascade operating system controls the boiler output and demand. The 6mm wood pellets are specially supplied from sustainable sources and are all UK manufactured.
Maintenance requirements are significantly reduced with the BioWIN Excel’s automated pellet feeding system and stainless steel combustion burner bowl that has a patented cleaning mechanism, removing much of the necessity for manual upkeep. Its compact design enables the BioWIN Excel to be installed in the smallest of boiler rooms while the pellet storage areas flexible requirements allows a variety of buildings to be adopted.
Wessex Biomass was the chosen installer to undertake the project and they did not hesitate in specifying Windhager as the ideal boiler manufacturer for the job. Peregrine Nicholls, managing director of Wessex Biomass, cited Windhager’s good reputation for quality engineering as a key factor in using them saying: “ We’d worked with them on eight projects of varying sizes before this one and on every job we’ve never had to deal with the client once the job was completed- testament to the high quality of their products and technology. Their central control system is great, as is the MES weather compensating control technology. For installers, you want to work with a trusted manufacturer that provides reliable products; Windhager has never disappointed.”
