South Bristol Skills Academy has the majority of its heat and hot water requirement provided by a Binder 400kW chip biomass boiler from Wood Energy. The building has achieved a BREEAM rating of ‘Very Good’ and includes energy generated by roof mounted solar panels and has the majority of the heat and hot water requirement provided by a Binder 400kW chip biomass boiler.

The Binder chip step-grate boiler has a gas burner ignition to allow wood chip fuel to be utilised with moisture content up to 50%. This allows maximum versatility in wood fuel supply. This will be particularly important as the biomass heating industry expands, enabling the boiler system to operate on a broad range of wood fuel specifications. This will ensure low running costs long into the future.

Other features of the boiler include an automatic heat exchanger cleaning system, automatic de-ashing to a separate steel container and a cyclone to remove any fly-ash within the flue gases. The system also benefits from a 10,000 Litre accumulator tank to reduce low load boiler cycling and to maximise the benefit from the biomass boiler.