Roganstown Hotel

Wood Heating Economic Sense
for Irish Hotels
Roganstown Hotel
& Country Club
Ian McGuinness
1
Where it all started
• 52 Bedroom Hotel, Golf and Leisure Resort
– Built around original listed building
– 55,000 square feet or 5,500 square metres
– Bedrooms, function rooms, restaurant, bars, gym,
swimming pool, Spa
• Original heating system designed around 5 LPG
Boilers.
– Annual LPG bill in 2006 grew to €178K from
€158K in 2005 – 13% - purely price growth.
– Long term risk of further LPG price inflation/
volatility and also possible carbon taxes
2
What to do?
• Looked at a number of options
– Heat Pump
• Environmentally friendly but very large capital and
installation cost
• Installation only really effective if you use underfloor heating
• Still requires significant electricity usage – so long
payback because of operating costs
– Solar Thermal
• not a viable alternative on their own
• Will review in the future
– Woodchip boiler
• Best suited requirements and reasonable payback
3
Woodchip Advantages
• Wood boiler and buffer tank installed
alongside existing system
• LPG left as back-up
• Little or no disruption during installation
• Chip delivered in at 2.5c KWh
– versus LPG at 6.5c/KWh.
– Pellets are 3.3c/KWh.
– System will take pellets or other biomass
fuels if required – e.g. recycled wood, wheat.
• Boiler very efficient – ash by-product is
very small
– good for the roses if you have some
4
Financial Decision
NOTE – grant approved based on slightly different configuration
5
Who can do it?
• We chose Clearpower as Contractor
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Top quality equipment
Proven reference sites
Easy to deal with
They offered complete package
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Designed system
Helped us through the grant process
Sourced boiler and ancillary equipment
Project managed installation
Could supply fuel at guaranteed price for 3 years
– Local fuel depot (North Kildare)
• In house service team (men in vans)
• Remote online monitoring and boiler control
6
Learnings from design and
installation phase
• Installation took longer than planned
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Original Project plan optimistic
Changes in design and availability of subcontractors
Delays in boiler delivery
Some teething issues
• Partnership important
– site owner, contractor and existing building services suppliers
– Interfacing with existing heating system and controls
• Actual grant worked out below 25%
– At time of application max was 25%
• Grant now raised to 30%
– Design changes after grant application increased capital cost
• Grant was based on original design
– SEI have been helpful here
• As an early adopter we got a grant top-up to the current 30%.
7
Learnings so far
• System works well, but does require
maintenance
– Regular checks
• Temperatures, status of fire, fuel levels
– Monthly cleaning
• We do this ourselves and takes ca. 4 hours
– 6 monthly service
• Clearpower conduct a complete clean and
preventative maintenance as required
• LPG boilers require a 6 monthly
preventative maintenance check
8
Savings in Year 1
9
Financial Decision revisited
NOTE – grant approved based on slightly different configuration
10
What it looks like
11
LPG Boilers Replaced
• Still work as
back-up
• They
automaticall
y cut in when
the water
temperature
drops below
60 degrees
12
The Installation
13
540KW KOB Boiler with
automatic fuel feed
14
Ash Removal
15
Control Panel
16
Official Switching On – Feb ‘07
Joe Corr (Green party and Cathoirleach Fingal County Council),
Trevor Sargent (Green party), John Hefernan (Clearpower),
Ian McGuinness (Roganstown)
17
Woodchip Delivery
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Remote monitoring and control
• Clearpower team access boiler and
optimise performance online
• Any issues identified early and
rectified
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• It works
Summary
– We are saving money
– Reducing CO2 emissions
– Encouraging new local fuel supply chains
• The system is highly efficient but
needs a bit more TLC than LPG
• We’ve been very pleased with our
partnership with SEI and Clearpower.
• We are delighted we made the
decision
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