Conference centre of the Himmerland Foundation "Tranum Strand" - Denmark

Location of the biomass heating plant

The host of the biomass plant is the conference centre of the Himmerland Foundation, "Tranum Strand", that is located in the small town of Tranum in the northwestern part of Denmark. The privately owned conference centre has a building area of 3.500 m3. It has room for 135 people in 40 rooms and people visit for conferences but also on holiday.

Many of the clients are from Germany - Germans who presumably should be very focused on environmental considerations when choosing conference centres. This is one of the reasons why it has been chosen to use a biomass heating system and the green heating system is part of the promotion material towards clients.

The heating plant

In september 2001 a 150 kW TwinHeat wood pellets plant was installed at the conference centre. The existing oil boiler is used for backup. The wood pellets plant was placed in the existing boiler room and the fuel storage was placed just outside the building. The plant supplies hot water for the domestic heating system and water consumption of the entire building. In 1998 the conference centre installed a new and very efficient oil boiler but because of the wish to obtain a green profile this boiler now is only used for backup.

The heat demand of the conference centre in a standard year is 542.000 kWh and the new biomass plant substitutes a yearly oil consumption of 53.000 litres. The estimated consumption of wood pellets is 112 tons pr. year.

Organisational structure

The organisation of the project is a bit unusual. VE Gruppen, a private company, has invested in the pellet plant but operation and maintenance is taken care of by the local caretaker. The business concept is that VE Gruppen finances and installs pellet fired boiler plants, which is removed or sold after the end of the contract. The core business of VE Gruppen is the sale of wood pellets and one major interest of selling biomass heat is to create customers for the pellets supply.

VE Gruppen promotes the pellets heat solution to customers as:

• Free expert advice
• No investment in time and plant
• A new modern heat supply
• 10-25% reduction of heating costs
• Stable and attractive heating economy
• Postponed investment in heating plant
• Reduction of CO2-emissions
• A green image

The caretaker of the heat plant is satisfied with the biomass heating arrangement and thinks that this applies for the owner of the conference centre too. They find that the arrangement where VE Gruppen invests in the plant and provides expertise on operation and maintenance has reduced the risk of converting to pellets heating. Thereby the conference centre can get some hands on experience and see if the economics are satisfying before committing themselves to investment in a pellet plant at a later stage. The caretaker does not find the new plant to give much more work than the oil boiler. The operation is very stable and he just has to empty out the ashes once a week.

Economy

In return for the installation of the pellets plant the conference centre must be supplied with wood pellets from VE Gruppen for a period of 7 years. Tranum Strand pays VE Gruppen for the supplied heat according to the measured consumption. VE Gruppen normally offers a heat price that consists of a fixed monthly amount and a unit price per kWh. In this case, however, Tranum Strand just pays a unit price of 0,055 EURO/kWh, which gives a yearly heat price of 29.800 EURO. According to VE Gruppen this will result in a cost reduction of 6%. The conference centre, however, expects the reduction to be up to 15%.

The motivation for conversion has primarily been environmental reasons and secondly reduced costs for heating, and a wish to save money from the day one. Tranum Strand is very satisfied with the project. As business manager Per Juul Larsen from the conference centre stated after two months of operation: "Even though we have only run the plant for two months I'm not afraid to say that we will achieve a yearly reduction of the heating costs of 15% or maybe more. We expected a zero option as we initially just aimed at getting a greener profile for the company. Therefore it is extra positive that we also get this cost reduction."

For more information about the project Jesper Bilstrup of VE Gruppen can be contacted. His telephone number is +45 96 70 30 16 and his email is jb@worldwidewind.com.

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