Old diesel boiler room replacement in residential building, Oviedo, Asturias

A residential building located in the centre of Oviedo has gotten its boiler room replaced with a biomass heating system with pellets. The old system worked with diesel and was more than 30 years old, so the reasons to change the system were achieving higher energy efficiency and emitting less CO2. Each household was equipped with an individualized monitoring system that measures consumption with remote viewing and thermostatic valves.

Initially, the community that resides in the building wanted a natural gas boiler which was not possible to install due to the boiler room being located underground at a 2nd level. The total area of the building with 9 floors is about 5,254 m2 and usually, 192 people live there. The problems encountered during the installation were a few, such as the non-viability of installing natural gas or that the installation underground was complicated. The new boilers were installed in a cascade configuration. In the end, the community living in the building are enjoying the benefits, like saving quite a lot of money and at the same time that they use a more sustainable heating system. The replacement of the system benefitted from renewable energies subsidies from the “Consejería de Empleo, Industria y Turismo” of Asturias (2011-2020).

This best practice is issued from the activities of Work Package 4 “Preparation of instruments for replacement campaigns” of the REPLACE project. Read it now to discover many more best practices illustrating the benefits of innovative low-carbon and renewable heating and cooling systems.