Thanks to Good Energy customers, St Mary’s Church of England Primary School in Timsbury, near Bath, has a new biomass boiler.

It’s the first project under our commitment to the independent Green Energy Supply Certification. The entire school will be heated by the boiler which burns sustainable and locally-sourced wood pellets. This means that over the next seven years the school will save 280 tonnes of CO2 from going into the atmosphere. That’s the equivalent of driving 30 times around the world in an average car – more than enough to make up for the school run.

Here’s what Year 6 pupil Storm had to say about it:
“Is your school horribly freezing in the winter? Well, maybe unlike you in your classrooms, at St. Mary’s Primary school in Timsbury, near Bath, we are actually looking forward to the cold weather, thanks to our new Biomass boiler!

At first I thought it’s just a boiler but it was actually incredibly fascinating. I think it is great that it helps the environment because there is less carbon in the atmosphere.

We are one of the first schools to have one of these and to think we used to use a 40-year-old oil tank and now we have a big red biomass boiler. It looks very futuristic and they use little wooden pellets to burn and then you need to empty the ash the burning of the wood creates every two to three weeks. The heat is raised and then we’ll have a cosy, warm, happy school.

The boiler holds 2,500 litres of water. Imagine having to pump that round a school by hand! Mr. Peddle is in charge of the new boiler; he has to keep track of all the levers, control panels and the gas tank, which is used for back up. The tank is kept at a temperature of 81°C. Wow, that’s flaming hot!

We used to have lots of problems with the school because of the cold weather but now thanks to our new biomass boiler, a big grant from a company called Good Energy to help us buy it and woodchips made from trees, that’s all in the past.”