Glen Avon Growers

During 2016, our UK distributor, Manco Energy, supplied two Linka biomass plants to Glen Avon Growers in eastern England. With two new plants, the UK vegetable producer can heat its greenhouses with cheap, CO2 neutral biofuel.

Glen Avon Growers is a major producer of tomatoes and cucumbers, based in the east of England near the city of Hull. The plants are grown in 42,000 m2 of greenhouses, where a constant temperature is required.

Due to the UK Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), Glen Avon chose to switch from gas to biofuel.

Manco Energy has supplied two biomass plants to Glen Avon, a hall plant and a wood chip plant. The heat from the plants is used to heat their greenhouses in two different locations. In the past, the vegetable producer used gas for heating, but by switching to biofuel it is possible to reduce costs, as biofuel is significantly cheaper.

The Glen Avon straw bed is constructed with a Linka straw bale, installed with a 12 metre straw bed. A special feature of the plant is the addition of a rubber band and raised sides on the track, which means that the track can be filled with wood chips (or other granulated fuel), in addition to straw.

The 995 kW Linka H boiler has a built-in staircase, which together with the world-patented combustion technology ensures optimum utilisation of the fuel. The ash is automatically transported outside the plant to a separate ash room. The size of the room means that a large amount of ash can be stored and the stock only needs to be emptied 1-3 times a year.

The Halman system is also equipped with a bag filter, which cleans the flue gases and reduces the amount of dust from the system.

Plant number two was delivered to Glen Avon in autumn 2016. This is also a fully automatic plant with a 995 kW Linka H boiler for wood chips. The plant has built-in PLC control, which ensures constant monitoring of its performance. In the event of a breakdown, alerts are sent both via the Internet and SMS.

The chips are transported from a 40 m2 chip store, through a scraper system with 4 scrapers, via augers to the boiler. Like the previous boiler, this one has a built-in staircase and Linka's combustion technology, as well as an automatic ash outlet for the external ash container.