Best Western’s Derwent Manor hotel, set in 20 acres of rural Northumberland overlooking Derwent Valley, has increased its green credentials with the installation of a Windhager biomass system.  The 3 star spa and leisure hotel boasts 48 spacious double bedrooms, six bars, six meeting rooms, a large restaurant and full spa and leisure facilities.

The hotel has recently upgraded their existing old oil and electricity fueled heating systems to a fully integrated Windhager biomass system. This state-of-the-art sustainable heating system uses wood pellets to provide heating and hot water to the hotel, its cottages and all their leisure facilities.

The total installation commissioned by GreenGuru NE is made up of two separate 180kW systems, each comprising of three Windhager BioWIN Excel 60kW wood pellet boilers in a ‘cascade’ format.

Having the boilers installed in this format has helped to ensure increased efficiency of the whole heating system enabling the hotel to make considerable fuel savings and provides an automatic failsafe in case a boiler has to be shutdown.  With the costs of wood pellets being approximately 30% cheaper than oil and less than half the price of electricity, this provided the hotel with considerable fuel savings along with being applicable for the Renewable Heat Incentive.

“The upgrade to a Windhager biomass system has been a great choice for us. Our old oil and electric boilers were costing us over £29,000 each year, so when GreenGuru provided us with the figures to move to biomass we didn’t think twice. The overall cost savings are fantastic especially with the great benefits from the RHI scheme” commented Keith Donkin, General Manager, Derwent Manor Hotel.

The newly integrated biomass heating system is predicted to generate returns of over £39,000 per year in government Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) payments for 20 years.

The hotel opted for the automated pellet feeding BioWIN Excel 60kW boiler, which is fully equipped with its stainless steel combustion burner bowl, patented self-cleaning mechanism. Also its low maintenance requirements have significantly reduced the need for manual upkeep for staff. The underground pipework installed carries hot water from the boiler house to the hotel, its cottages and leisure facility.

The hotel’s holiday cottages, which were previously using an electric boiler system, had new wet systems installed within each accommodation to enable them to use the heat from the new biomass system.

The BioWIN Excel’s small footprint, fully automated integration functions and boiler storage hopper enabled a quick turnaround. The hotel’s old oil and electric boilers were disconnected and removed with no downtime, which resulted in no disruption to the hotel throughout the installation.

“As a leading luxury hotel, providing high quality facilities and service is vital whilst actively investing in ways to improve our environmental performance. This upgrade has enabled us to continue achieving these goals. The whole heating system has increased our boiler efficiency to 92% and has given us beneficial flexibility in how we can heat our whole site” Keith added.

Further information is available from Windhager UK on 01225 892211 email: info@windhager.co.uk or by visiting the company’s website at www.windhager.co.uk

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