Renewable Energy Installer December/January 2014 | Page 45

Work on the largest PV park on a brownfield site in Wales is close to completion,
according to regeneration company St. Modwen
The £15m solar energy project based at the
1,050 acre Baglan Bay site in Port Talbot
will house 20,000 panels, enough to provide
electricity for an estimated 1,200 homes per
year in Wales.
The PV park is part of St. Modwen’s £3
billion regeneration strategy across South
Wales comprising a portfolio of 3,500 acres
that includes the development of three
former BP sites located in Neath, Port Talbot
and Swansea.
Rupert Joseland, St. Modwen’s South
Wales and South West regional director,
said: “Baglan Bay is a major regeneration
project to transform over four million sq
ft of disused brownfield land into a new
employment site with the potential to create
thousands of jobs locally and this PV park
marks another important step forward in our
redevelopment plans for the site.
Breathing new life
Urban decay: The 20,000 panel PV park at Baglan Bay, Port Talbot, is part of a larger £3bn
regeneration project on derelict land in South Wales
“Baglan Bay provides all the right
conditions for PV, from good exposure to
sunlight, ideal coastal climate for cooling
panels and it’s located in an area that does
not impact the public.
“By early next year we will be in a
position to connect these solar cell panels
to the national grid and start producing
renewable energy clean of emissions for
residential and commercial developments
across South Wales for years to come.”
Biomass on vacation
Simon Holden, co-founder of Euroheat, explains a project to bring the carbon
and financial savings of biomass to Eildon Cottages, Melrose, Scottish Borders
The award-winning Eildon Holiday Cottages
is a converted 18 th century farm house, with
six newly built self-catering cottages. Prior
to biomass, the farm and holiday cottages
were heated by two kerosene boilers.
The system
The new heating system consists of a
single 65kW HDG Compact pellet boiler
and accumulator. The HDG Compact is
designed to burn pellets or wood chips, with optimised combustion technology,
which results in high efficiency and low
fuel consumption. An advanced thermostat
controls the boiler temperature, ensuring
only the required amount of heat is
produced.
Pellets are transported to the
combustion chamber and automatically
ignited, with self-activated cleaning and a
large ash container, meaning minimal input
from end users.
Healthy return: Eildon Cottages’ new biomass
system delivers combined fuel savings and an
RHI income of £11,067 Why pellets?
Pellets were chosen due to the limited space
available to install the hopper and restricted
access for delivery. Pellets are more
expensive compared with logs or chip but
offer additional benefits to end-users; such
as taking up less space, a key requirement at
Eildon, and creating less waste. Helping to
ensure their low carbon credentials, pellets
are now easily available from British-based
manufacturers throughout the country.
The boiler and hopper are built into
an existing outhouse. Internal pipework
transfers the heated water to all six
holiday cottages and an underground
REHAU Rauthermex pre-insulated pipe
then transfers heat to a heat exchanger
in the main farm house. This separates
the farm house from the holiday cottages
hydraulically, so, if maintenance work on
the distribution system is required on one
building, it does not affect the heating in the
others. Each individual property has its own
standard central heating controls.
Healthy returns
Apart from the carbon saving benefits
of switching to biomass, what’s really
attractive is its money saving credentials.
At Eildon, twenty tonnes of pellets a year
are required to fuel the system, at a cost of
£3,600; less than half the cost of Kerosene.
The savings don’t end there; thanks to the
Renewable Heat Incentive, Eildon receives
an annual payment of £7,367, more than
covering the pellets.
www.renewableenergyinstaller.co.uk | 45