In December 2009 Cathal Reilly of Lakeside Mushrooms commenced a
pilot of a combined Renewable energy solution from EcoTwo Ltd. The solution was
designed through consultation with Cathal around his own growing needs.

EcoTwo were mandated to deliver a solution that dramatically
lowered Cathal’s energy costs and that took into account the future needs of
his business. Carbon tax and carbon labelling were high on his
agenda - the new solution had to future proof Cathal’s farm against these
upcoming obstacles.

 As on most farms, Cathal was
using a traditional heating system, powered by a kerosene boiler. The boiler
was operating at an estimated 76% efficiency. Coupled with this, a considerable
amount of the pipe work was also inefficient.

The solution designed by EcoTwo effectively and efficiently removed
the build up of CO2 and retained the heat, through an efficient heat exchange
process. Originally this was piloted with one tunnel, and such has been the success
of the system Cathal has expanded to 5 tunnels in 2010, with a plan to complete
the remaining tunnels on the farm this year.

The second part of the EcoTwo design was the installation of a high
efficiency 60kW wood pellet boiler. The selected boiler was the Therminator
from the famous Austrian company Solarfocus. This solution is proven technology
and operates at an efficiency of 95.4% on wood pellet. Furthermore it is a dual
fuel solution and can burn solid wood as a fuel, offering complete flexibility
and independence. Wood pellets remain
about 50% cheaper than the equivalent in oil.

When asked for his comment on the solution Cathal remarked: “This
solution has reduced my production cost from 4 cent/lb to 1.3 Cent/lb. The
solution will have paid for itself in 2.9 years and has the added benefit of
making my farm carbon friendly. The risk posed to my business through rising
fuel costs needed to be dealt with, and I am delighted with the results. The
team at EcoTwo have provided a first class service, from design, through to
implementation”.

Because of its modular design the solution provided to Cahill can
be tailored to meet the needs of larger or smaller operations.

Michael Smith of EcoTwo commented: “The solution has proved to be a
major success, and this has been backed up with strong performance data,
gathered from the site through a really bad winter. Working with Cahill has
been very useful, and he has assisted us in designing a solution that
dramatically reduces waste heat firstly, and then uses a lower cost fuel [wood
pellet] to meet the new heat load requirement. Such has been the success of the
product that EcoTwo has a patent pending on the key part of the design. “

To arrange a site visit from EcoTwo contact 0596451865 and Rosemary
will schedule the visit.