In a remote forestry village in Northumberland, a novel form of central heating is being demonstrated - a shared heat network fuelled by wood. Here, surrounded by Kielder Forest and located at the northern end of Kielder Water, it makes a lot of sense to use local resources to heat buildings - whether individual homes or communal buildings such as the Youth Hostel and the visitor centre at Kielder Castle. Wood fuel is a renewable resource, and does not contribute to greenhouse gas carbon emissions, since the carbon emitted in burning is balanced by forest regrowth. The wood chip fuel supply also helps to secure local forestry jobs and contributes to the Kielder Regeneration Initiative, ensuring the viability of the village in the years to come.
About Kielder Village
Kielder, a village of about 200 people, with its petrol station, village shop and pub, is already an oasis for cyclists, walkers and other visitors. Now it is attracting increasing numbers of parties interested in renewable energy, who are keen to learn from this exemplary district heating project. District heating networks are commonplace in Scandinavian countries such as Sweden and Finland, where forestry residues are often used as fuel, but this is one of the first of its kind in Britain.
How does the Scheme work?
In the Kielder scheme, locally-grown wood is chipped and stored by Forest Enterprise at a specially designed fuel store in Kielder Village, which will be filled up about 3-4 times a year.
The wood chip fuel is then delivered to the boiler house and is fed to a 300 kilowatt Austrian Köb boiler. The hot water is piped to surrounding buildings, where heat exchangers transfer the energy into domestic central heating and hot water systems. A heat meter measures the amount of energy used by each customer, and the local community company sends them monthly heating bills. Kielder Community Enterprise Ltd. has been established as a
community-owned energy service company or "ESCO", providing a permanent source of local employment.
Köb Pyrot Boiler
The Kielder District Heating project has been supported by a variety of sources including the European
Regional Development Fund, the Northumberland Strategic Partnership through One
NorthEast, Northumberland National Park Authority, Powergen, Forestry
Commission, Northumberland County Council and Tynedale Council.
