Biomass Boiler Keeps School Warm in Snowy Stowe Vermont

The Stowe Middle School and Stowe High School sit beside each other covering 160,000 square feet and sharing a large central boiler room. In the summer of 2013, a modestly-sized pellet boiler system (3 identical Fröling boilers) with a maximum output of only 1.5 million BTUs/hour was installed in the boiler room along with a 500-gallon buffer tank and lots of new piping.

Today the system provides over 85% of the heat required at the two schools, displacing over 40,000 gallons of fuel oil with 260 tons of wood pellets.

An article about this project appeared in Green Energy Times (April 15, 2014).

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The front entry at Stowe Middle High School
Three Froling TX biomass boilers have a total output of 1.5 million BTUs per hour.
With lots of old equipment remaining, the boiler room was very tight to work in.
The 800 gallon buffer tank sits in the middle of a very tight boiler room.
Flex augers bring pellets to the Froling TX boiler feed augers that meter the fuel in as needed.
The old oil boilers remain in place for peaking and back-up, each over 1.5 million BTUs potential output.
Flex augers pull wood pellets from the silo into the boilers.
28 ton pellet silo feeds 3 Froling pellet boilers.
The large Stowe Middle High School complex is obscured by falling snow (very common in these parts!).

The front entry at Stowe Middle High School in Vermont during a snow storm.

Three Froling TX biomass boilers have a total output of 1.5 million BTUs per hour offset more than 40,000 gallons of oil each year.

With lots of old boiler and heat distribution equipment remaining in place and active, the boiler room was very tight to work in.

The 800 gallon buffer tank sits in the middle of a very tight boiler room.

Flex augers bring pellets from the silo to the Froling TX boiler feed augers that meter the fuel into the firebox as required by the boiler control system.

The old oil boilers remain in place for peaking and back-up, each with over 1.5 million BTUs per hour potential output.

Three flex augers feed wood pellets into the biomass boilers as a Froling crew finishes their installation at Stowe Middle High School. Thank you Tarm Biomass!

This 28 ton pellet silo feeds 3 Froling pellet boilers. An average of 250 tons of pellets are burned here each year.

The large 160,000 square foot Stowe Middle High School complex is obscured by falling snow, a very common occurrence in these parts, so near to the Stowe Mountain Resort.