Green Fox Community Energy - John Cleveland College

The 800kW Herz BioFire was recently opened by Fiona Booth, Head of Community Energy, DECC.

Green Fox Community Energy is a volunteer-run energy cooperative set up by a team of local volunteers in 2012 to enable community-led action for sustainable energy in Leicestershire. Green Fox is one of the few cooperatives investing in community energy schemes in the country.

This biomass project is the second ever cooperatively funded biomass project in the country, the first of this type in the education sector. Rural Energy is proud to be a partner in this project facilitating community biomass.

The Community Energy scheme allows people to buy shares in the projects. This helps fund renewable energy schemes.

Green Fox also has a number of partners, which is how Rural Energy became involved with the scheme. They also work with Transition Leicester, Sharenergy and the National Forest (to name a few).

John Cleveland College, a secondary school in Hinckley, Leicestershire, was previously heated by numerous unreliable and old oil boilers.

With support from the partners, the 800kW Herz BioFire project came to life at the start of 2014 after months of careful planning. Rural Energy acted as Main Contractor and project managed the entire programme to ensure a quick turnaround during the summer holidays.

Rural Energy designed and installed a system comprising a Herz BioFire retrofit into the existing plant room and an octagonal fuel store. Rural Energy’s team managed the construction of the plant room (or rather deconstruction of some of the walls). This included coordinating the removal of several defunct oil boilers. As the boiler is a retrofit installation, it was important to provide a suitable fuel store solution. A prefabricated octagonal silo and a vertical elevator/trough system for wood chip deliveries was specified to meet this requirement.

This has ensured the long-term prospects of the school. The scheme brings reliable, renewable heating to a school that was constantly struggling with boiler break-downs and cold classrooms.

Download the full case study to read more.

Rural Energy is a Bronze EAUC Company Member.