Fulton’s boiler installation helping to divert food waste from landfill

Refood’s anaerobic digestion plant in Widnes is a recycling technology alternative, which diverts rubbish from landfill and converts commercial business food waste into green energy.

In 2013, heat transfer specialist Fulton successfully tendered for the supply of a packaged hot water boiler system consisting of 12 FHE-250 modular hot water boilers for the Widnes site.

Commenting on the decision making process, Shane Murray, group project manager for Saria (Refood’s parent company) said: “Fulton presented a solution to provide multiple small hot water boilers which, additionally, gave us spare capacity during scheduled maintenance or if one of the boilers malfunctioned. The Fulton design was also considerably better than anything we saw from their competitors.”

Commercial food waste delivered to the Refood site is processed through an anaerobic digester, a natural method that – working in a similar way to a compost heap but on an industrial scale and in the absence of oxygen – biologically breaks down food material to produce biogas. Once the biogas is upgraded to the standard required, it is then injected back into the national grid.

Fulton’s boiler installation at Refood is providing multiple functions. Its two primary objectives are to provide hot water for the cleaning of the site and hot water for washing and sterilisation of the food waste bins. The boiler system also provides heat to the pasteurisers prior to the anaerobic digesters. To comply with ABP regulations, legislation dictates that pasteurised food waste has to be maintained at 70°centigrade for one hour. Heat from the boiler system is also used for the under floor heating system in the offices and other ancillary processes on site.

“We were so impressed with the design, installation and the fact that heat and hot water from Fulton’s boilers are used for so many functions, that we are also discussing maintenance packages with the company,” said Shane.

Fulton’s highly-efficient, low-temperature FHE-250 hot water boiler features a fully-condensing, stainless steel heat exchanger and its modular design also means that additional boilers can be combined to suit any application and hot water requirement.