Investing more than £150,000 into the facility, Rural Energy has fully equipped the 1,800 square foot training space with a range of Herz biomass boilers, to give students practical experience of operating boilers from this brand.
Paul Clark, managing director of Rural Energy, said: “The launch of the domestic Renewable Heat Incentive earlier this year has added to the considerable demand already generated by the commercial arm of the scheme, so a growing number of businesses are now offering specialist biomass technology in the UK market. Many gas boiler and solar PV installers, for example, are looking to up-skill and add biomass to their service offering.
“We recognised that there was a real gap in the market as, until now, there has been very little training and support available to businesses from manufacturers. This has created a shortage of properly qualified and experienced biomass heating engineers, which impacts negatively on the industry as a whole. From our point of view, developing a well-trained and highly skilled workforce gives us genuine confidence that our distribution network has the capability to deliver the standard of installation we expect – which protects the reputation of the biomass industry as a whole.”
Courses available at the centre cover a range of comprehensive topics including Herz biomass boilers, control systems, fuel feed options and fuel quality.