Arundell Arms Hotel

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Case Study - Arundell Arms Hotel

An extremely popular west country hotel, pub and conference centre with parts of the building dating back to 1750.

Currently off gas grid, in 2011 the hotel spent c. £25,000 on kerosene (c.40,000lts per year) for heating & hot water. There was a strong economic case to switch to biomass – but chip or pellet fuel?

40,000ltr of Kerosene approx. equivalent to 400,000kWh of energy
This equates to c. 85 tonnes of pellets or 114 tonnes of wood chips at 30% mc.

Largest pellet delivery c. 20 tonnes e.g. 4-5 times per year
Typical chip delivery 40m3 (c. 9 tonnes) e.g. 13 times per year

Cost of pellet @ £190/tonne = £16k per year
Cost of chip @ £110/tonne = £12.5k per year

Logistics of delivering fuel

Key consideration;
Pellet, tanker lorry blown delivery c. 40 minutes, 5 times per year
Chip;
Below ground fuel store – planning, cost, disruption – discounted
Vertical fill system possible but c. 1 hour, 13 times per year & noise

Capital Cost

Turnkey cost (excluding building) on pellet £110k
Turnkey cost (excluding building) on chip £125k