UK - Lanoyce Nursery
When the oil-fired boilers at Lanoyce Nursery needed replacing at the end of last year, manager and partner Brian Rickard made the bold decision to install a Biomass boiler – one the first of its kind in the UK growing industry. The groundbreaking woodchip-powered boiler was incorporated into the existing Priva Intégro process computer with a bespoke software solution designed by engineers at the Dutch company, and Lanoyce is now carbon neutral and set to save significant costs on climate control and fuel consumption.
Lanoyce Nursery is a family-run grower of Alstroemeria flowers based in Cornwall. Starting off as a small grower in the 1980’s, the Lanoyce nursery is now a state-of-the-art, 17,500 m2 glasshouse facility that has been supplying Alstroemeria to multiple retailers such as J. Sainsbury’s and Waitrose for over a decade.
Lanoyce and Priva
Lanoyce has been using Priva systems since 1987 and, like the nursery itself, the systems have grown and improved to handle the different challenges that have presented themselves over the past 22 years. The Priva Intégro process computer controls heating, lighting, screening, irrigation for seven different growing areas of the 17.5 hectare facility, all of which require independently controlled, mutually exclusive climates.
Although Priva Intégro had easily managed the operation of the nursery’s complex climate needs and the previous two fossil fuel boilers, the inclusion of a high-tech wood chip boiler was uncharted territory for the Dutch computer.“We have put the Intégro through its paces over the years,” said Brian Rickard, partner at Lanoyce, “but some people were worried that something as complex as the Biomass boiler would be asking a bit too much, even for something as adaptive and accommodating as the Priva Intégro. “But we sat down with the Priva engineers and they came up with a unique piece of software that would control each element of the boiler, from reverse temperature to heating in the buffer tank, and integrate it directly with the Priva heating systems in the nursery, essentially meaning that we could slot it into the control system without a hitch,” explained Brian. He added: “With that problem solved, we then just had the issue of installing the boiler itself!”
This, as expected, proved to be no easy feat. Brian and the team at Lanoyce were keen to have the boiler up and running before winter, and decided that September was the latest that the new boiler could arrive to make that a possibility. It arrived in the middle of October, leaving just seven weeks for the team to install what would be one of the most groundbreaking pieces of hardware used in the UK growing industry.
Recover investments
“As we knew that the boiler would come much later than anticipated,” explained Brian, “we had everyone – our mechanics, electricians, engineers from the boiler company, Priva’s engineers – working to get the infrastructure in place before it arrived. “Because the team at Priva has already prepared the system with the special software, and were there to help with the installation, everything went incredibly well and the boiler was running before winter,” added Brian. Installing the Binder RRK Boiler was an expensive capital investment, but replacing the old oil-fuelled boilers with the new woodchip system will save Lanoyce over £45,000 a year on fuel. At current oil prices, the nursery will completely recover its investment in just four to five years – an estimate that will drop if oil prices rise as they are expected to do.
Importantly, the woodchip boiler will emit 685 tonnes of CO2 less than its oil-fired predecessors. Brian said: “In the first four months the boiler ran at full power for over 2,000 hours non-stop, which would have used 122,000 litres of oil. In that period, we saved about 350 tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere.“The prime reason for the move was economics – we wanted to make significant improvements to our infrastructure to make the success of our business sustainable. But to know that we could make such a significant improvement to the environment while saving money was an incredible opportunity that we couldn’t ignore, and we are very grateful to Priva for helping to make it happen.”
