ON-SITE works are underway to install a boiler at Skipton Hospital that will help set the tone for what is possible in renewable energy - and help clear waste from nearby farms.
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The new straw pellet-fueled boiler is expected to be firing within months, providing hot water and hydronic heating for the hospital.
This will come almost two years after Beaufort and Skipton Health Service officially launched the project in the community. It also follows installation of a woodship bioenergy boiler at Beaufort Hospital in 2014.
Pyrenees Shire Council has been working with the health service to deliver the project, with the hospital based in the adjoining Corangamite Shire.
This is a project Pyrenees Shire chief Jim Nolan said had great benefits and future opportunities to Pyrenees farmers and the wider region.
Mr Nolan said the hospital's projected annual fuel consumption was about 392 tonnes of straw pellets but nine partnering farms had the capacity to produce 50,000 tonnes from 14,000 hectares' land.
"There are opportunities to expand this high-energy project and perhaps the next step could be to explore interest from government departments and business interests," Mr Nolan said.
"This project provides benefits to the hospital, which is important, and it involves a number of farmers in our patch and the longer term will help reduce their waste.
"There are also environmental benefits to reduce burning stubble in our patch. There is evidently smoke in the area at Autumn-time, so there are benefits in reducing greenhouse gases but in using the bi-product create energy and heat."
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The straw pellet pilot system will replace gas heating at Skipton Hospital.
Waste straw has otherwise been typically burnt in the region. Instead, residual ash from the pellet process will be returned to farmers for use in growing the following season's crop.
Beaufort and Skipton Health Service chief Meryn Pease said it was exciting to be involved in a renewable energy project working with and benefitting the health service's wider communities.
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