This article aims to provide more information about the importance of biomass fuel quality and how to ensure it meets the fuel quality standard. In addition, it will also explain the impact it has if it is low wood fuel quality.
Biomass refers to the organic material from trees, grasses, and crops that have recently lived. Biomass is a renewable and carbon-neutral alternative to fossil fuels, which are largely responsible for climate change. Along with other renewable energy technologies, it has become an invaluable energy source for reducing international emissions. In the world, it ranks third after coal and oil in terms of energy resources.
Read more about biomass here.
Technologies in Biomass Power Generation
There are many feedstocks and technologies that can be used to generate biomass-based electricity that may or may not involve intermediate conversion processes (such as gasification). The issue is further complicated by the fact that different feedstocks and technologies are more suited to varying scales of application.
Thermal-chemical processes like combustion, gasification and pyrolysis can convert bioenergy into power, as can biochemical processes like anaerobic digestion. There are three types of thermochemical processes: combustion, gasification, and pyrolysis. A variety of technology suppliers provide solid fuel combustion technology that has been proven to work in the commercial sector. On the other hand, commercial deployment of gasification has only just begun.
The fact that biomass energy is becoming such a powerhouse in the industrial sector, all of these processes that occur means high-quality fuel from the start needs to be available.
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Essential Factors For High Biomass Fuel Quality
With the technology evolving to handle biomass fuel better, we must ensure our wood fuel is top-notch and meets new fuel quality requirements. But what makes it so? There are a few factors that can impact the wood fuel quality for biomass heating:
Lower Carbon Content
This should be considered as one – if not the most important – quality of wood fuel. Compared to fossil heating oil, wood pellets and wood chips produce 65 to 100 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than solid biomass fuels. This is according to a study by Life Cycle Associates and the Biomass Thermal Energy Council.
Moisture Content
Your fuel’s overall calorific value will be determined by its moisture content. The most effective content ratio for moisture is 20% (+/-4%) when comparing price and performance. The more water in your fuel, the less energy you will get out of it, so you will have to buy and process more wood.
As a result, when using a biomass boiler, you want to avoid fuel that contains too much water. Excessive moisture in wood fuel makes it inefficient to burn. The overall weight of delivery also increases the cost. Hence, the ideal moisture content for biomass is 20% (+/- 4%).
Read more on the benefits of the perfect conditions of our wood fuel.
Ash Content
When fuels contain ash, the combustible matter is substituted for incombustible matter, thus lowering their net calorific value overall. Therefore, low ash and dust content is important for the quality of wood fuel and can save a lot of money as there are fewer incombustible materials within the wood chips or pellets, allowing them to burn longer and yield more energy.
Boiler Performance
If your boiler’s fuel purity is constantly changing, it will affect its long-term productivity. Using wood fuel with a consistent energy yield and similar margins of quality within the wood chips or pellets should allow the performance of a boiler to stay significant during production.
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Why Choose Woodyfuel For Biomass Fuel?
We ensure our products have all the factors of high fuel purity listed above. We achieve the highest energy yield while reducing ash and dust by-products in your biomass boiler by using wood fuel with a moisture content of 20% (+/-4% moisture margin). We also check to ensure that our wood chips and pellets are within the margins of error set out, so the fuel is of optimal quality. Here are some other reasons to stick with us!
Quality Checks for Biomass Fuel Quality
Among all the risks to biomass boilers and their performance, contamination is by far the most serious. There can also be issues with air quality when fuel is of poor quality. As a result, we conduct stringent checks on all our batches to ensure that wood fuel is uncontaminated.
Operational Consistency in the Workplace
With Woodyfuel, you can be sure that your biomass is clean, uniform, and meets your specifications. We also ensure that your boiler runs smoothly and without interruptions in your workplace due to our biomass delivery system.
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Boiler Compatibility
When wood fuel is not used in accordance with a boiler’s specifications, the biomass fuel industry reports significant issues with the boiler’s performance and operating costs. By visiting the site, we can determine what biomass is most suitable for your unit.
The Renewable Heat Incentive
As a result of recent changes to the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), the quality of biomass fuel has become just as important as the sustainability of the fuel. A new quality criteria must be met for wood chips and pellets to qualify for RHI payments from the Biomass Suppliers List (BSL).
Using highly moisturised fuel can lead to the loss of your RHI payments entirely if you are not fulfilling the requirements of your RHI duties.
Woodyfuel’s mission is to provide the best quality force-dried wood chip fuel to support you as a trusted local provider of wood chips. Our wood fuel is sourced responsibly to ensure optimal RHI payments, CO2 reductions, and support for the local environment.
Sustainability
As mentioned above, Woodyfuel is approved by the Biomass Suppliers List – BSL (you can find us there on the BSL authorised fuel suppliers), a government UK certification body or woodfuel quality assurance scheme, so you know we take sustainability seriously.
It is important to realise that the modern green energy industry depends on strategic forest replanting and sustainability management, contrary to what is commonly believed about wood fuels. As part of the Ethical Tree Service policy, trees are replanted as we manufacture biomass. As a result, only 2% of the regulated woodlands are harvested each year, while the remaining 98% are allowed to grow and handle carbon. We observe a rapid reduction in carbon footprint and pollution in the atmosphere as our sensibly sourced wood fuel gradually replaces fossil fuels.
Bulk Buying
As UK based pellet producers and commercial suppliers, we can supply wood fuel from the multiple locations we have our biomass depots (mostly in Northern England), and we offer bulk deliveries. This means we can select the closest depot to you and deliver all the wood you need, saving on the amount of fuel required to provide your supplies and ensuring that sustainability is kept at the forefront of our ethos.
Call us today if you have more questions, we can help – the people here are experts in the field!
