IT may be well known for its lack of trees and has no existing timber industry, but officials in Shetland are turning to wood to fuel their new heating system - for an office block located beside one of Europe's biggest oil and gas terminals.
Shetland Islands Council said biomass was the most cost-effective solution for the upgrade to the oil boiler system in the Port Administration Building on Sella Ness, where marine operations are monitored. This is despite it being situated beside the Sullom Voe terminal, which receives hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil and processes more than 1600 tonnes of gas a day.
Wood pellets will be imported onto the islands to fuel the biomass system, which is designed by Windhager UK and is expected to lower the local authority's carbon footprint and save money from its revenue budget.
John Simpson, from the Shetland Islands Council, said: "Although the system has not yet been tested in cold weather, to date it has performed very well and we look forward to it continuing to do so."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article