Alavere municipal boiler house in Estonia, 350 kW

Different municipals are looking for more cost efficient ways to heat their buildings. These buildings are usually kindergartens, parish councils and other social buildings that are under local municipals responsibility. Oil was quite cheap during soviet times and oil boiler houses were very popular. It means that still a large number of municipalities heat with oil because they have the equipment. Every year more and more municipalities invest in renovation of the boiler house and change to pellets heating.

While being a renewable source of energy, pellet prices are also lower than heating oil. Pellet boiler houses are automated and don’t require space-taking equipment like woodchip systems.

Alavere boiler house has  Viessmann Vitoplex 200 with nominal power of 400kW. The boiler is powered by PV350a burner. The length of the heating pipeline runs for about 1 km between the buildings – so it is not a long grid. The burner regulates its power levels automatically according to the usage of hot water in the system. This varies the most during peak hours when people wake up in the morning and the outside temperature is usually the coldest.

There is a 14 cubic meter silo for pellets. It is refilled by a pellet truck with a pneumatic filling system.