Waste wood system to heat Olympic-sized swimming pool in Down

The North’s first 50-metre Olympic-sized swimming pool will be heated by burning waste wood dumped on council amenity sites in North Down, it was revealed today.

North Down Borough Council is to build a £4.3m (€4.8m) wood-fired combined heat and power plant on its headquarters site in Castle Park, Bangor.

The power plant has the potential to provide heating to a number of public buildings, including the new leisure centre housing the pool, the Town Hall and potentially a range of other educational buildings nearby, said North Down Mayor Leslie Cree, MLA.

He said it was a very exciting development for the council in waste and energy management.

“The combined heat and power plant will be state-of-the-art and give the council annual savings in energy and waste management equivalent to £663,000 (€740,000) per annum,” said Mr Cree.

He added: “The plant will be fuelled by waste wood chipped to form high quality fuel which will then be burned in a 2.5MW biomass boiler supplying steam to a turbine which will have a renewable electricity generation capacity of 280kWe.”

The North's Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster announced funding for the scheme of £1.088m (€1.2m) under the Environment and Renewable Energy Fund.

The minister said: “This highly innovative plant will use waste wood, collected at the council’s amenity sites and has the potential to generate electricity and provide heating to a number of North Down public buildings.

“The council will gain significant benefits from the supply of much of the energy requirements for its planned new Leisure and Aquatic Centre, which will house Northern Ireland’s first 50m swimming pool.

“This is due to open by the end of 2011 and will form part of the legacy for the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympic Games.”

The energy plant, also due for completion in 2011, will contribute to the North’s target of generating at least 12% of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2012, said Mrs Foster.

“The usage of waste wood will also avoid sending more than 3,000 tonnes per annum of potentially good biomass fuel to landfill and provide CO2 emission reductions equivalent to 1,000 tonnes of carbon per annum, by reducing the use of oil, gas and electricity,” she added.