Inverurie community heat project outlines its plans
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GARIOCH District Heat (GDH), a relatively new initiative in the area, held a thought-provoking symposium at Inverurie town hall on Saturday.
The event was opened by Tom Nockolds, project manager of Energy4All who introduced George Niblock, chair of Inverurie Community Energy Society Ltd and Ian Booth, director of the Society Ltd.
GDH plans are centred around the construction of the waste treatment plant at Port Elphinstone, a residual of which means the heat produced by the process will see the surplus residual heat from the Energy from Waste plant 'gifted' to the local community by the plant developer Agile Energy Recovery (Inverurie).
The heat will be supplied via a network of underground pipes delivering hot water to domestic, commercial and public properties.
GDH's by-word is Clean, Safe, Affordable low carbon heat and is community owned for community benefit
As well as discussing the project they also explained about new emerging technology, the concept of heat batteries replacing oil or LPG.
This week has also seen a an application from Scottish and Southern Energy Network for a new 132 kilovolt (kV) Gas Insulated Switchgear (GIS) substation at Leylodge near Kintore as an addition to the exisiting major substation site.
The infrastructure at the existing substation connects circuits to Blackhillock, Peterhead, Tealing and Fetteresso / Kincardine.
These circuits are integral to accommodating the North to South power transfers to maintain the security and quality of supply of the Network.
Recent site inspections at the existing substation have provided a detailed condition assessment of the plant which SSEN say has highlighted various age and performance related issues relating to the infrastructure within the existing substation.
They propose a new 132 kV GIS substation on a platform (91.9 x 38.6 m), a two storey GIS and Control Building (30 m x 59.5 m) with a
maximum height of 14.7 m above the platform level and a battery container (9.9 m x 4.7 m) within the substation platform.
