Wood Pellet Biomass

There are many different forms of renewable and alternative energy sources, from solar and wind to biomass. One of the most popular forms of biomass energy is the wood pellet. Wood pellets have actually been produced since the 1970's, and gained a small market share during the oil crisis. At a time when oil prices were skyrocketing, the appeal of wood pellet heating was clear, however the environmental benefits at the time were not clear. However, as the price of oil began to lower, the cost advantage of wood pellet heating was no longer apparent, and wood pellet heating went into obscurity. During the 1990's in Europe, certain countries, specifically Sweden started to look again at wood pellet heating. Sweden has a huge resource of timber processing, and thus a huge resource of sawdust. At the time, this sawdust was simply seen as waste, and timber processing companies were paying to have the sawdust sent to landfill. By compressing this sawdust into fuel pellets, not only turned a costly waste into a valuable income, it also meant Sweden could become more energy independent and support the Swedish economy.

At this point in the 90's, the concerns over carbon emission and climate change were only just been taken seriously. Therefore the only real driving factor of the wood pellet market in Europe was cost, for example taxation on oil in Italy increased significantly. This meant Italy also took a more active look at biomass and wood pellet heating. At the beginning of the 21st century was when the need to move away from fossil fuels became more clear. Again prices began to rise due to conflicts in the middle east, and stronger evidence was been presented on the effects of fossil fuels on increase the global temperature.

Biomass Energy and Biomass Resources

Biomass is considered a carbon neutral form of energy, as biomass is already part of the current carbon cycle, no additional carbon dioxide is sent into the air during biomass combustion. There is a huge range of biomass resources, not only including wood ranging from agricultural residues, straws, grasses and energy crops. All of these biomass resources can be processing into biomass pellet fuels for pellet stoves.

Wood Pellet Heating and Pellet Stoves

Due to the uniform size and shape of pellet fuel, they are ideal for automatically fed hoppers on pellet burners such as pellet stoves and boilers. These highly advanced solid fuel combustion systems make burning pellets very little work, while generating efficiencies in the range of 95% and more. Compare this to basic log stoves which only archive around 60% efficiency.

How To Make Wood Pellets and Energy

Due to the growing success of pellet fuels, more people are interested in producing pellets, even on a small scale. Producing pellets is a true skill, as each material is unique and may require changes to produce the best quality pellet at the best productivity. Balancing pellet quality with productivity is crucial as pellet quality impacts on combustion efficiency, and productivity impacts on energy consumption during production which is also very important.

The Wood Pellet Production Guide © PelHeat Ltd - Wood Pellet Biomass