For Natural Power’s renewable heat team, there’s no such thing as a “normal” project. The variety in our projects springs from the diversity that exists in the weird and wonderful places that renewable heat can be sourced from (and the technologies that bring it to us in useful forms), and from the diversity of things that people and businesses use heat for.
However, this mixture of types of work and technical content brings its challenges.
One of our most unusual heat uses came from a project on the island of Vatersay, where the local community development organisation is launching a pilot seaweed growing project. The need to dry the harvested seaweed locally brought into sharp focus the limitations of the local energy system in this remote and peripheral location. However, sustainable solutions do exist – and meeting the challenges of providing renewable heat in a place like Vatersay will hold lessons for many other places. Read the case study here.
When it comes to sources of heat, a project delivered for a local council brought us into contact with a waste heat recovery opportunity in a particularly sensitive context. Crematoria operate several important processes, one of which is the removal of mercury from the combustion chamber flue gases. This process results in the capture of some of the heat contained in these gases, which is available at a temperature suitable for direct use in building heating systems. The engineering is relatively simple; working sensitively in an environment where families are saying their final goodbyes is less so. Read the case study here.
For many people, geothermal energy tends to conjure up images of lava fields in Iceland but what if we could tap into the potential sources of heat that can be found kilometres deep under Scotland’s largest city? Working with a specialist in deep geology assessments, we were tasked with assessing what surface equipment would be required to generate heat and power for the people and businesses of Glasgow, indicate the quantities that could be produced and how it could be distributed. Read the case study here.
All these projects rewarded a sensibly fearless approach. That means knowing that some fundamentals apply in all contexts, and that our experience is more transferrable than it might first appear - and being confident that we can learn navigate our way through the rest, based on sound engineering principles.