The Power of Solar…
Our 49Kw Solar array was installed in March 2012 and is owned by the rest of the family.
Electricity generated helps power the refrigeration for the fruit stores and the hen houses.
RECYCLING ORCHARD WOOD PRUNING’S FOR BIOMASS WOOD CHIP
From this:
STEP 1
Pruning’s were traditionally burnt in the orchards. Now they are laid across rows between the trees and pushed out into a giant pile with a large grab fork on the front of our telescopic digger. These are left to dry naturally for six months.
Through This:
STEP 2
We hire a lorry with a crane that loads the pruning’s onto a conveyor bed that continually feeds a wood chipper. Chip is then propelled from the spout into trailers . This way we can efficiently process around 110 Tonnes of wood chip a day, with a minimal use of fossil fuel.
And This:
STEP 3
Wood chip is stored in one of our old grain stores so the air can be blown through the stack via a ducted floor, if further drying is required, though this is rarely the case.
To This
Step 4
Wood chip is scooped up with a large bucket on our telescopic digger and tipped into the storage pods on top of our biomass containers, ready for burning.
In September 2014 we invested in Three biomass pods, to safeguard our future farm energy consumption. The great thing is that we use the pruning’s from our orchards to power them!
Each pod is a Forty foot cargo container made to look pregnant at one end with a welded on extension for loading and storage of woodchip.
Inside this is conveyed for clean burning in our mega efficient 199Kw Passat biomass boilers.
This heats hot water which is circulated around our hen houses. Nothing is wasted as any ash produced is an excellent addition to our compost.
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