Summary
• Ignition 09 takes place on March 11 and 12 at the Sage Gateshead.
• The event will include a programme of seminars, workshops and field trips. For more information go to www.ignition09.co.uk
• Jonathan Porritt is guest speaker at the Heated Debate seminar.
• Companies across the wood energy industry are reporting rising demand.

Ian Brown is a farmer who’s gone from food production to energy production. Fifteen years ago, on Lee Moor farm in Northumberland, he started converting 300,000m² of farm buildings into a 19-unit business park.

One boiler heats all the buildings on the property, as well as Mr Brown’s farmhouse and two cottages, and its fuel is short-rotation willow and poplar trees grown on the farm. Even in winter, the bunker only needs to be filled with fuel every four to five weeks and the ash is emptied every two weeks. “We need about 120 tonnes of wood per year,” said Mr Brown, adding that it’s a 75% saving compared with using oil.

Mr Brown is part of the UK’s quickly growing wood energy market, and he will also be one of the exhibitors at Ignition 09, the country’s first expo for the sector – in his case supplying the 12kW boiler heating the show marquee.

Held on March 11 and 12 at the Sage Gateshead, Ignition 09 will be an opportunity for timber users and processors, developers, architects, and others to learn more about wood energy technology. It will offer field trips and workshops, and exhibitors will include wood fuel and boiler suppliers and makers and consultants.

Heated Debate

Jonathon Porritt, programme director of Forum for the Future and chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission, will launch the Heated Debate seminar, where industry experts will discuss key issues.

Wood fuel technology is commonplace in mainland Europe. In Austria, for example, there are more than 40,000 medium to large wood boiler systems, compared with 1,000 in the UK, according to Mr Brown.

He also said that in Nordic countries, Germany and Austria the emphasis is on district heating rather than individual boilers. In Sweden for example, district heating covers 40% of its heating market, and 62% is biomass-fuelled.

With that level of enthusiasm, it’s no surprise that wood fuel expos have been taking place in Europe for a while. But until recently the industry in the UK wasn’t large enough for its own event, according to Martin Glynn, director of Rural Development Initiatives, one of the companies organising Ignition 09. Now, with the increased demand for wood fuel in the UK, it does “really need a dedicated expo”, he said.

Wood energy is growing in popularity across all industries, but it’s being driven more in the commercial sector, said Alan Donnelly, general manager of environmental consultancy RSK Group. He expects that’s where it will continue to grow.

Rising demand

Across the industry, companies are reporting rising demand. Ignition 09 exhibitor, The Buhler Group, which produces equipment for wood pellet manufacture, is one of them. “We’ve seen increased enquiries from wood fuel suppliers looking to expand their plants,” said spokesperson Sarah Smith.

Wood energy is being used across the UK in areas Mr Glynn describes as “clusters of activity”. It tends to be more popular in rural areas, partly because that’s where the timber is and because, price-wise, it’s more competitive with oil and LPG gas.

“A country hotel using 1,500,000kWh of energy a year would have an annual oil bill of around £60,000,” he said. “If it installed a 500kW wood fuel system at a cost of around £200,000, it would use 400 tonnes of wood chips annually, costing about £30,000. That’s a capital investment payback of six to seven years, without including grant aid and potential tax relief.”

Another reason for the increased popularity in wood fuel is the drive to use renewable energy to achieve carbon reduction targets. Wood fuel, said Mr Glynn, is 90-95% carbon lean.

“We use that rather than ‘carbon neutral’ because, obviously, the processing and transportation of wood fuel does itself use a small amount of fuel,” he said.

But the wood fuel is carbon neutral because the carbon emitted by the timber during burning is the same amount absorbed when the tree was growing.

Local authorities

With commitments to reduce carbon output, local authorities are very keen on wood fuel and are often the driving force behind a local cluster of users because they operate facilities that need a lot of heat – such as schools, swimming pools and care homes, said Mr Glynn.

One of the field trips for Ignition will visit Hexham Swimming Pool. It will start at Minsteracres woodland in the Tyne Valley, which provides fuel for the boiler, then go to the pool to see the 500kW boiler.

Ignition 09 is expected to attract architects and specifiers, and subjects such as planning and paying for boiler installations are included among the many workshops.

The exhibits will focus mainly on the technology used in commercial and industrial sectors, such as hotels, warehouses, sports centres and offices. It will also cover the technology for district heating schemes.

For anyone interested in heating, energy or facility management, the show is an opportunity to view technology that is becoming increasingly popular in the UK.

Wood has always been used for fuel, said Richard Harvey, director of exhibiting company Rural Energy, but inefficient systems, such as open fires or log-burning stoves, are being replaced by technologies that are highly-developed and “pretty near perfected”.

For more information go to www.ignition09.co.uk.