A wood pellet bakery oven is saving energy and reducing the carbon footprint of a Lancashire bakery
“It’s really important for our industry to be looking at ways to cut down on energy use, especially at this time,” said Liam Fleck of The Bread Roll Bakery in Darwen. “We’ve had people from the Council in, advising us how to be more energy efficient, so when Bakewell Ovens approached us about their wood pellet bakery oven, it really stood out as a good opportunity to reduce our carbon footprint.”
The bakery purchased and installed its first wood pellet rack oven last December — and its second has just been fitted.
“We used deck ovens previously and this is a rack oven, where the heat comes from all angles, so there’s been a bit of experimentation to fine tune our baking times," said Fleck. "But it’s been brilliant so far."
Bakewell Ovens has developed the oven in response to the demand for energy efficient products.
“As engineers by trade we’re always looking for new innovations and new technology, and this integrated wood pellet system is unique," says Bakewel's Richard McDonald." It’s a brand new project which reduces the owner’s carbon footprint, is cost effective and smokeless.”
In fact, Bakewell Ovens claim the wood pellet bakery oven can save up to 50 per cent when compared to conventional bakery ovens, and there is very little waste. The small amount of ash that collects in the tray can be reused as a fertilizer or even as cat litter.
Balcas, a company based in Northern Ireland, manufacture the wood pellets and they are distributed all across the UK. The Bread Roll Bakery is supplied through a local distributor based just outside Preston.
Functioning with a solid fuel boiler, the unit's burner is completely automatic. A high powered centrifugal fan develops a horizontal flame, just like conventional boilers, and the burner fluid permits a mixture of fuel and combusting agent with a high burning output, allowing the burner to work with low air levels — the same levels which are normally used for liquid fuels
“There’s no mess as the pellets are put in and sucked through," says Fleck.
A programming system allows the user to select the type of regulation, whilst the fan speed allows the air quantity to be changed according to burner power. And a careful monitoring of the whole system will result in a much longer burn.
"And when you get a longer burn it’s more productive, which means even more savings for the owner,’ adds McDonald.
