Summary
¦ RHI stage one payments are worth 7.6p per kW/hr for installations under 200kW.
¦ Briquetting is an option for companies with large waste wood volumes.
¦ Payback can be as little as 12-24 months.

Waste wood burning technology suppliers are lining up to meet the expected rise in demand following the announcement of millions of pounds of new renewable energy subsidies.

Fercell Engineering will promote its turnkey service – providing dust extraction, shredding, wood-burning and even briquetting equipment if required. It also highlights its ability to re-engineer its imported range of heaters to provide exactly the heat output required.

It also supplies cost-effective refurbished technology: “A 300kW biomass heating system can range from the low £40,000s up to the high £60,000s,” said Fercell’s Mark Fletcher. “A refurbished system is a fraction of the cost.”

Range of options

He said manually-fed boilers were good for small heat requirements and low waste volumes, while briquetting was an option if more wood waste was created than could be burned.

One Fercell customers burns wood waste to create heat in the winter, then manufactures wood pellets for sale in summer. Shredding and briquetting machines are supplied as part of Fercell subsidiary Weima UK.

The Talbott brand has been established for more than 30 years and thousands of installations have been completed worldwide.

Commercial director Amy Fielding said an average wood-heating requirement may involve a 150kW system (eligible for the highest RHI stage one payments), operating 12 hours a day, six days a week.

Talbott’s wood waste and biomass energy systems range from simple air heaters to comprehensive boiler systems, using sawdust, shavings, hardwood, softwood, wood chips, MDF, chipboard, briquettes and pellets.

Ms Fielding said Talbott’s can supply technology required to meet the changes to the wood waste heating industry such as automatic heat exchange cleaning, step grate fuel delivery, automatic ignition and metering.

Chris Franklin, director of Ranheat, said new wood-burning installations can pay for themselves in very short payback periods, ranging from just 12 months to several years.

Oil substitute

One joinery company he is currently quoting for uses 17,690 litres of oil per year and has significant wood waste skip costs. Coupled with the RHI, annual savings can be tens of thousands of pounds. “Most of our projects have a two-year payback,” he said.

He added that the biggest potential lay in kilns as the majority in the UK are oil fuelled.

One of Ranheat’s clients was spending £250,000 on waste costs annually and £65,000 on gas. “Unless joinery companies are using engineered timber, there is a lot of waste.”

Ranheat is promoting its economiser technology, which it says reduces flue temperatures and increases efficiency.

Simon Holden, managing director of Euroheat, said the business case for investing in a biomass boiler was solid, even without subsidies like the RHI.

He said he hoped the incentive did not flood the market with new operators without the knowledge to provide a competent enough service and advocated slow and intelligent growth.

Euroheat’s biomass technology includes Fabbri factory space heaters and HDG (12-380kW) wood-burning boiler systems.

The HDG accumulator system takes up heat and releases energy as required, so in summer hot water sufficient for several days’ usage can be generated by heating the boiler up once.

Euroheat recently launched new training courses for end users and installers at its Worcestershire exhibition centre, which features working examples of boilers, accumulators and fuel stores.