Customers and staff are now as warm as toast at the busy Jewson Llangefni branch following the installation of a mighty double biomass boiler system.
The Anglesey builders’ merchant branch on the town’s industrial estate was, until recently, heated with oil boilers but to improve its energy performance Jewson has switched to a biomass system installed by Denbigh-based ‘green’ energy firm, Hafod Renewables.
It means the 100,000 square foot building is now meeting the company’s sustainability goals and Jewson Area Director, Louise Riley said: “Sustainability is important to us as a business, so when the oiled boiler system needed replacing at the Llangefni branch it presented us with a real challenge.
“This new renewable system means that the branch is effectively off-grid.”
Now the branch of the historic builder’s merchant – Jewson was founded in 1836 and has over 600 outlets nationwide – is also comfortably warm thanks to the twin 60 kilowatt biomass boiler system installed by Hafod Renewables
Richard Jones, Operations Director of Hafod Renewables, added: “We have been working with Jewson for several years on training for their staff on renewable systems.
“When they contacted us they recommended biomass which uses wood pellets from sustainable forests in Wales and is a by-product of waste wood from the timber industry. So far, it is working well for them.
“They haven’t got mains gas available here so we came up with this system which is saving almost £5,000 a year and ties in with their sustainable agenda as they’re helping save the planet as well.”
Richard’s son, David, Managing Director of Hafod Renewables, said: “It’s a two-way relationship with Jewsons because we are a good customer of theirs and spend about £30,000 a month with them in Denbigh and we have been working with them on training for staff on the renewable energy systems they sell.
“We’re very pleased to be in partnership with one of the giants of the UK construction industry and we’re very pleased with how the system is working at Llangefni where they also benefit from the Renewable Heating Initiative’s feed-in tariff which pays them 3p per kilowatt hour of power generated.
“With two 60 kilowatt boilers producing 80,000 KwH that adds up to £4,800 a year.”
Hafod Renewables, based on Denbigh’s Colomendy Industrial Estate, was founded in 2010 by former Holywell High School pupil David, an electrician and graduate in Renewable Energy, and Richard, a heating engineer, when the solar industry, fuelled by a generous feed-in tariff, was booming.
A Government cut to that tariff has driven many firms out of the business but Hafod, which employs six staff, has continued to grow as the company has expanded into other areas such as ground and air-source heat pumps, biomass and underfloor heating.
In those seven years they have fitted over 10,000 solar panels, stacked end on end they would tower over 29,028 foot Mount Everest.
Most of their clients have been domestic solar systems but as well as almost 100 farms, they have also installed solar power on the new Holywell ‘super’ school, businesses, including one of Wales’s biggest boatyards, and a rugby club as well as providing biomass boilers and air and ground-source heating systems.
For more on Hafod Renewables go to https://www.hafodrenewables.co.uk/
