The Mid Argyll Pool is a bustling community swimming pool which is 100 per cent heated by renewable energy using a biomass boiler. The heating covers the pool water, room temperature and the hot water for the showers.
Heating costs are usually a significant financial drain on community pools and before the biomass boiler was installed, the Mid Argyll Pool was heated by an oil boiler, which was expensive to run.
As a community-run pool every penny counts and the group have had to raise funds in the past to stay open. Losing the pool would be a disaster for the local residents, who rely on the pool not only for general exercise but as a resource for children’s lessons and a number of local clubs including those for kayaks, triathalon training, kids and masters.
However, by installing a biomass boiler, which runs on a sustainable supply of woodchips, in place of an oil fired heating system, this pool swapped from being an expensive oil guzzler to a fossil fuel free zone, with big cash savings. Without the biomass boiler it would be much harder for the pool to meet their costs.
“The biomass boiler is in effect the heart of the pool. If the pool had continued to operate on oil rather than woodchips, the annual cost of fuel would have added more than £13,000 to the annual running costs, and the pool would not have had the funds to survive.” Bob, volunteer director.
A local energy agency confirmed the feasibility of the biomass boiler for the pool. Biomass was an appealing option for the pool for four reasons:
- The ability to meet the heat demands of the pool – they confirmed the boiler could deal with large and steady heat demands, yet also provide a control system to be able to alter the temperature: warmer for mothers and babies classes, cooler for triathletes who generate their own heat when training.
- Adequate space – the pool had plenty of space at the back of its building where a new boiler house was built and a hopper installed – being the system which stores the woodchips to be fed to the boiler. The small lorry which delivers the wood chips can easily access the hopper, being on the edge of the car park.
- Local and sustainable wood supply – the pool is close to a local wood supplier, which reduces the distance fuel travels and uses what would otherwise be a waste product for the timber business.
“We can utilise parts of the tree for wood fuel that would be unusable for any other use and we are turning a waste material into a source of renewable energy.” Bob, volunteer director
- Sufficient cost savings – the cost of heating the pool with woodchips would be significantly less than with oil. When first installed the biomass boiler halved the pool’s heating costs, and today the pool’s heating is 56 per cent less than if they were still using an oil boiler. This is due to the difference in price between woodchips and oil.
The Mid Argyll Community Pool is a Community Company Ltd by Guarantee (CLG) and registered as a charity and a social enterprise.
The pool is community owned, as the community initially raised the funds to build a pool in their local area. They are a CLG and due to their social objectives they are defined as a social enterprise, so that any profit can be re-invested in the pool and any trustees or directors do not benefit financially from the business. Charitable status means they do not have to pay tax.
It’s run by nine volunteer directors, six staff and additional part-time coaches and teachers. The directors meet once a month for board meetings, giving advice and support in between.
“We all support the pool as volunteer directors and helpers because we are passionate about swimming and the service that the pool offers to the community. It can be hard work, but the key is to have a sufficient number of qualified directors and other helpers so that you can spread the load.” Ali, volunteer director
The biomass boiler doesn’t generate income for the pool, but it does save around £13,500 a year in heating costs compared to what the pool would have had to pay if it was still heated by the previous oil fuelled boiler.
In future, the pool may generate income from the biomass boiler by selling excess heat, which the boiler could produce, to neighbouring properties.
In addition to reducing the pool’s operational costs, they have enjoyed a number of other benefits:
- Financial security and additional services
- The biomass boiler also gives the pool a sustainable financial stability in their fuel costs and the pool feel the impact of this at every board meeting.
“When you are a community facility every penny matters, and we don’t want to put up costs for swimmers. The biomass boiler means we don’t have the shock of fluctuations in our bills and the savings are freeing up money to develop other activities in the pool.” Eilidh, pool manager
“The price of oil on the world market has yo-yo’d up and down, but it will steadily go up and up. Woodchip prices are much more stable and we reap the benefit of that stability in an increasing gap between the saving that we would experience with woodchip over the alternative oil.” Bob, volunteer director.
This enables them to have freed-up resources to direct into new services. One of the new activities they have recently been able to launch is water polo classes for children. At the first class, the pool expected around 15 swimmers but more than double that turned up, meaning they will have to expand the lessons. Supported by their low energy costs, the pool can afford to do this.
Supporting the local economy
By using biomass fuelled by local wood sources, the pool is also supporting the local economy and giving new value to what was previously a waste by product for the timber business. It’s a win both environmentally and financially for both of them.
“It is far far better to burn mid Argyll timber than it is to burn Middle East oil.” Bob, volunteer director.
Set up costs
The biomass boiler cost just under £25,000 to install in 2003. Today a guide cost for a biomass boiler of this size would be around £74,000
The boiler was installed as a demonstration unit through a scheme to encourage use of wood fuel. This meant there was no capital cost to the pool for the installation, as it was fully grant funded.
Payback: At the time the biomass boiler was installed, if the pool had not received grant funding the pay back time of the installation would have been around four years. Today a similar installation could be paid back in approx 6-10 years, based on replacing an oil boiler. Installation and payback times will vary depending on how much alteration work needs to be done to install the boiler.
The capital costs of installing biomass heating are significantly higher than a conventional system. However, as the Mid Argyll Pool shows, given its capacity to reduce energy bills, longer term it is a much more attractive choice financially.
Maintenance of the boiler is fairly simple and involves de-ashing and cleaning the boiler every four weeks. Every three months the boiler is completely shut down in order to clean the heat exchanger, which ensures efficient performance. This doesn’t interfere with the running of the pool as the boiler isn’t shut down long enough to affect the pool temperature.
Currently this maintenance is carried out for free by one of the pool directors, which is ideal as there is someone who can regularly check the boiler is operating correctly. If the pool staff did not want to carry out this work, maintenance could cost between £500 and £1,000 a year and is a service commonly offered by the wood supplier.
The biomass boiler uses between 25 and 30 bags of woodchips a month and costs the pool nearly £11,000 a year, which covers all their heating costs.
There is room for the pool to increase productivity of the biomass boiler even further by improving the connection to the pre-existing heating system and further insulating the system. It’s worth considering these aspects as part of any similar install.
The pool are considering selling some of their excess heat to other buildings and thinking about generating their own green electricity.
The 200 kW biomass boiler is capable of producing more heat than the pool needs and is only operating at 70 per cent of it’s full potential. Stephen, “We have surplus capacity which we know that we can sell on as heating to adjacent businesses, and that’s something we’ll be looking to develop.”
The pool are investigating if they could develop a mini district heating system to supply and sell their excess heat to two neighbouring businesses. This would mean the pool could offer to sell heat, charging a tariff for the heat that would be lower priced than the neighbouring buildings currently pay for their electric heating.
This would enable the pool to generate extra income to support their work and provide cost savings to the neighbouring businesses, as well as cutting their carbon emissions. As Bob says, “This would be a win-win situation for everyone.”
The biomass boiler has dramatically cut the pools heating bills; however they still need to use a lot of electricity for their lighting. With an electricity bill of £12,000 a year, they are now investigating if they could generate their own green electricity as well.
“We really want to get more efficient and more sustainable. Everybody knows about the future impact on global warming. We might be in a beautiful part, isolated in Scotland, but we are affected by this as well so we are looking to work really hard on our future plans about expanding the use of our biomass boiler; looking to use other renewable sources, particularly solar panels and photovoltaic, selling energy back in.” Stephen, volunteer director
The pool are exploring whether they could install solar PV on their roof to generate their own electricity and earn additional income from FIT payments.
Current contribution to the grid
The pool does not currently export any energy to the grid but rather uses it for their own purposes. However, the heat the biomass boiler produces each year is the equivalent to that used by 15 houses a year.
The Mid Argyll Pool has a 200 kW system to cater for a 20 metre pool that contains 255,000 litres of water. This requires 25-30 bags of 400kg woodchips per month to operate.
When sourcing a wood supply, look for a local one that operates sustainably, for instance it has a cycle of planting new trees to replace those that are harvested. Also look at your ability to use the by-products, which will not only be more environmentally friendly but may be cheaper.
Biomass can use a range of fuels, including woodchips, wood pellets and logs, and can be installed for space heating as well as boiler systems.
“I think we should think about it more as another form of heating rather than an alternative form of heating . . . and we can apply it to anything so from a village hall to a house.” Robert McGlynn, pool director
Planning and permissions
When considering a biomass system, it is important to consider if there is space for storage and access for delivery of the biomass fuel. The biomass boiler at the Mid Argyll Pool was installed in a new boiler house at the side of the pool, which required planning permission. Generally, outside extensions will require the same planning permissions as any building extensions.
Internal installations may benefit from ‘Permitted Development’ planning exemptions if in a domestic property in England, Wales or Scotland.
However there are restrictions on permitted planning which include:
- If there is an external flue which exceeds 1m in height.
- If the building is listed or in a designated conservation area or World Heritage site.
Check with your local authority planning office for more guidance, as permitted development varies by region.
For non-domestic properties, you will also need to check what permissions are required with your local authority planning office.
Given that the boiler has a chimney flue, which is required as a vent to take the emissions from the boiler, you may also need to check whether you are in a smokeless zone, or an Air Quality Management Area and whether biomass installations are permitted.
How to get started
Like any community initiative, the more people involved, the better the benefits.
“The installation of the boiler has been absolutely vital for the swimming pool and the community, because it’s helped make our pool sustainable for the future. That’s not only in the fact we know we can keep it running for longer but actually it’s helping us provide a local income and energy source for our community here in the swimming pool…
“The more you have involved the more economically and socially sustainable it is.” Stephen, pool director.