Biomass boiler heats Whitchurch hospital the eco-way

Whitchurch Community Hospital has become more eco-friendly after a new biomass boiler was installed.

The 38-bed community hospital fuels the boiler with wood pellets, bought from a local company, to help with heating and hot water costs. Bosses installed the boiler as part of the NHS Carbon Management Programme and it is set to halve the hospital's carbon emissions.

The hospital, which provides outpatient services, has been using the state-of-the-art boiler since the winter.

In the first few weeks the 250kW output BioMatic boiler immediately had to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week and the storage silo for the pellets was filled every two to three weeks.

Mike Ball, estates officer at South Staffordshire & Shropshire Health Care NHS Foundation Trust, has been responsible for the project, in partnership with Hamworthy Heating and Stewart Associates Consultants, on behalf of Shropshire Community Health Trust.

He said it had worked very well. "At peak times the boiler was using 20 tonnes of wood each week.

"Its performance from day one has been fantastic," he said.

He said Hamworthy Heating enabled the trust to deliver environmentally sustainable heating at highly efficient levels of performance.

The cost of installing the boiler was paid from the primary care trust capital budget, while the expected Renewable Heat Incentive from central government was due to be given directly to the hospital.

Officials said patients would not have noticed any difference in the warmth of the building in Claypit Street or any change to the hot water supply.

The fully automatic boiler does not need to be continuously burning with a trickle fuel feed to stay alight, like most biomass boilers. Instead it has a fully automatic ignition with self-extinguish and auto-restart during periods of no demand.

By Dani Wozencroft