Burning wood waste

Biomass boilers

Many sawmills already use biomass boilers for producing hot water and steam for kilns. A boiler consists of a furnace and a heat exchanger (boiler tubes). Furnance heat from the flue gas is transferred in the heat exchanger, producing hot water or steam. The furnace determines the type and quality of the fuel that can be burnt in the boiler. More...

The main economic argument for converting from fossil fuels to a biomass boiler is the low cost of on-site wood waste as fuel.

Use our biomass boiler investment tool for a quick assessment of your options.

Utilising wood waste as fuel also reduces waste disposal costs. More...

Cogeneration is the combined production of heat and electricity. In a cogeneration plant the waste heat from the electricity generation is utilised as process heat (kiln drying and timber treatment) on site. If the heat is utilised in this way, cogeneration is a very efficient method of producing useful energy from fuel. More...

A cogeneration plant can lead to reduced fuel and electricity costs at a sawmill. More... 

For a quick assessment of your cogeneration options try our Biomass Cogeneration Investment Tool.

Several operations have been made to successfully run on a combination of biomass and other fuels, such as, coal. The possibility of this type of conversion needs to be assessed on a case by case basis and depends critically on the fuel ratios.

For more information on co-firing including  a international database of co-firing installations see the IEA Bioenergy Co-combustion site.
 
Read an article from New Zealand based researchers at Coal Research Limited on cofiring with New Zealand sub-bituminous coal [137kb].