As everyone knows, oil and gas reserves are depleting at the same time increasing in price every year.

St Walrick sees the use of sustainable energy not only as financially sound but fitting in the sustainability philosophy of St Walrick.

Our new main building (de hut), which was built in 2009, was built to be as eco friendly as possible.  We use a combination of high efficiency wood burner and solar heat collectors to supply us with warm water. During the summer warm water is used for the showers and in the winter we use it for the central heating. The combination wood burner and solar heat collectors means that we make no use of gas and our warm water production is CO2 neutral.

Solar heat collectors

We have 70 square meters solar heat collectors on the roof of the storage building, next to de hut. 

The warmth that these collectors produce is channelled via heat exchange into two large water tanks. These tanks/boilers can hold a total of 4000 litres. Which is enough for 250 people to shower daily. 

When warm water is needed, cold tap water is mixed with hot water from the boilers. A heat exchanger mixes the water to a temperature of 36 degrees centigrade.

As there is no stagnant warm water in the water pipes there is no chance of bacterial infection such as legionella.     

Our next step is to place solar panels. These panels will supply is us with most of the electricity we need, which makes St Walrick even more CO2 neutral.

High efficiency Wood burner

We use the wood burner when there is insufficient sun light to supply us with warm water. We burn all untreated wood in the burner, such as timber from trees that have been felled or trimmed on the terrain. 

The burner is so efficient that there is hardly any ash produced. The wood is burnt at a temperature of 1300 degrees centigrade, which means that the wood vaporizes.

All chopped timber is from trees that have been felled or trimmed on our terrain with permission of the forestry commission.    

Water temperature

The camp staff can monitor online the whole process and, where necessary, make adjustments. We can monitor how much energy is being produced by the solar heat collectors and the water temperature. The information is refreshed every minute.

This information is available on Energievoorziening Scoutingkampeerterrein St Walrick.