What are wood pellets?
Wood pellets are a biomass fuel made from compressed sawdust, produced as a waste product from sawmills and used in wood pellet burners. Their shape is achieved by compression at the pellet processing plant and their shiny surface is from the natural glues found in the sawdust. As well as the significant environmental benefits, wood pellets are also cheaper than the fossil fuel alternatives for heating. More information on wood pellets can be found in our fuel section of the website.
What are wood pellet biomass boilers and why choose one?
Wood pellet biomass boilers are simply boilers that run solely on burning wood pellets and can provide all of your heating and hot water requirements. They are the most popular type in the UK and pellet heaters can be used effectively to heat domestic buildings all the way up to large factories. The vast majority of domestic installations will use wood pellet boilers. They are also the most popular type of commercial and industrial systems making up around 45% of those installed, with the next highest being wood chip that makes up around 40%.
Most modern wood pellet boilers will be over 90% efficient, sufficiently higher than most conventional fossil fuel systems which will typically be 70 to 80%. They are also far more environmentally friendly and burning wood pellets can significantly reduce your carbon emissions in comparison to using a fossil fuel alternative for heating e.g. a 3 bedroom home run on pellets will have CO2 emissions of just under a tonne a year if heated using pellets, in comparison to 4.5 tonnes if on mains gas, 6.5 tonnes if on oil, and 13 tonnes if heated by electric.
Much like wood chip systems, pellet boilers can also have a bulk fuel store which allows them to be automated so removes the day to day interaction that is required with log boilers which require frequent fills by the owner. In the majority of cases the main body of a wood pellet boiler where the combustion process takes place is almost identical to their wood chip counterparts. They do however differ greatly in the fuel delivery system that transports the fuel to the boiler and this offers them greater flexibility in terms of the positioning of equipment. Due to the bulk density and calorific value, a given volume of wood pellets will hold around 3.5 times the energy of the same volume that chip will give. This offers more flexibility to wood pellet heating systems once again as users can get away with much smaller fuel stores than they would be able to if they had a wood chip system.
Along with the potential for fuel savings, having a wood pellet heating system can make you eligible for the the governments. These two combined can typically see the capital expenditure for a project paid back in around 5 years, with large gains then seen over the remaining lifetime of the pellet boilers installation.
Why choose Wood Pellets?
Renewable
Wood pellets have a decided advantage over fossil fuels: They are produced from renewable materials such as wood shavings and saw dust. Austria is among the most richly forested countries in Europe. Over 30 million solid cubic meters of wood grow each year. The timber stock in Austrian forests has been increasing for years despite intensive use for construction timber, paper manufacturing and as an energy source.
Sustainable
Investment in a new heating system is expensive and therefore should be profitable in the long run. Severe rise in prices and unpredictable risks characterize the market for fossil fuels. In comparison, the supply of wood from domestic forests is much more secure and less volatile. Austria produces more wood pellets solely as by-products of timber processing than are consumed in the country.
Cost-effective
The economic advantages of wood pellets are striking: Compared to fossil oil or natural gas, you can save about half of your expenses on fuel.
An important factor for the cost-effectiveness of wood pellet heating are the highly efficient heating devices that were developed for this solid fuel. Wood pellet central heating boilers, as well as wood pellet stoves, transform more than 90 % of the energy contained in the fuel into usable heat.
Essentially, it is this combination of low fuel costs and efficient heating devices that makes the use of wood pellets so cost-effective.
Comfortable
Wood pellet central heating boilers are known for high user comfort, easy operation and cleanliness. The fuel is delivered by silo truck and automatically conveyed from the storage to the boiler. Ignition, control, boiler cleaning and de-ashing happen in a fully automatic manner. What remains fort he user to do is emptying the ash box once or twice per heating season.
Wood pellet stoves have high comfort advantages over conventional wood stoves. Once filled with wood pellets, the pellet stove automatically provides consistent heating for 2-3 days. Once a week or every other week the ash has to be removed. Technical refinements, such as switching on, switching off and monitoring the heating device by mobile phone complete the picture of a highly user-friendly heating system.
Eco-friendly
Since wood absorbs the same quantity of CO2 from the atmosphere whilst growing as is emitted during combustion, wood fuels do not contribute to the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Even if one takes the deployment of fossil fuels for production and transport of wood pellets into account, the result is a CO2-reduction of over 95 % compared to the use of heating oil.
A crucial advantage of wood pellet heating are the extraordinarily low emissions. Dry fuel, the electronic regulation of combustion air and the hot combustion chamber provide for an optimal and clean burning.
A wood pellet central heating boiler for a large single-family house thus emits less than 1 kg of ash per year in the form of fine particulates – an extremely slight amount if one considers that the total amount of fine dust emissions in Austria is approximately 50,000 tons per year.
Domestic Economy
The use of wood pellets not only offers significant advantages for the environment and clear economic advantages for the customers, but also provides a secure future market for domestic companies which deliver the fuel, manufacture the heating devices, install and service them. A study of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology assumes that in 2011 the use of wood fuels in Austria amounted to a turnover of over € 1.4 million and therefore secured about 14,200 jobs.
