Field trial to evaluate the performance of in-situ biomass boilers

Research and data analysis services are required to carry out a comprehensive study in to the performance of biomass boilers deployed under the Renewable Heat Incentive Scheme. This will comprise of a number of components including: review of research to date, metering of in-situ biomass boilers including site surveys, laboratory testing and data analysis.

The research is expected to be formed of an in-situ boiler field trial, for which all boilers deployed under the RHI are within scope. This field trial will evaluate the in-situ performance of the boilers as well as provide data to help understand boiler operation in different applications with varying fuel types. In-situ emissions will need to be quantified however this may be problematic on metered sites. As such additional laboratory testing will need to be carried out on similar boiler types to establish a representation of the metered boilers likely emissions. The project is due to continue monitoring for up to 2 years, however there will be contract break points at 6 and 18 months. An understanding of how metered site operators interact with their boilers will be needed to allow separation of boiler performance affected by physical factors and those created by user operation, an element of social research will be required to understand this. With the volume of data gathered through all the components of the research a significant portion of data analysis will be required. This data analysis will be conducted in the second phase of the project and at the termination of the field trial metering. There will be a requirement for the successful contractor to work with a digital delivery partner to feed data from metered site to a web based reporting tool for DECCs use, and will require some automated post processing of data to put the data into a format usable by DECC staff.