Biomass boilers are still an economical option for heating poultry houses, despite the changes to the renewable heat incentive (RHI), coming into force next week, delegates at the NI poultry conference at Loughry campus were told on Tuesday.

The subject was addressed by CAFRE renewable energy technologist David Trimble, who said that the RHI will change for new non-domestic installations from Wednesday 4 November.

The biggest change that will affect new projects will be a tiered tariff of 6.4p/kWh paid for the first 1,314 hours of heat produced each year for boilers between 19 kWth to 199 kWth in size, and then 1.5p/kWh paid after this up to an annual cap of 400,000 kWh.

Trimble explained that, under the original RHI, a typical 27,000 bird house using 365,000kWh of renewable heat each year would receive a flat-rate tariff of 6.4p/kWh amounting to £23,360 of support.

Under the changes, the same house would receive £8,326 under the first tier of support and £3,524 under the second tier, which totals £11,850 annually.

He said that a standard boiler-and-heat distribution system could typically cost around £55,000, meaning a payback of around five years. It was also noted that wood pellets cost slightly more than conventional gas to run. However, improved feed efficiency and welfare benefits for birds due to reduced ammonia and water vapour in houses, offsets the extra cost of pellets. The system has been widely adopted within the broiler industry.

Electricity

During his presentation Trimble also said that significant savings could be made to electricity bills by using a large number of more efficient items, such as lights.