Kent Downs Woodfuel Pathfinder

Seeks to help local people, businesses and land owners grasp the opportunities offered by the growing interest in using wood as a sustainable source of fuel and in so doing: provide local jobs for local people; bring our treasured woods back into management; and maintain the landscape and ecology of the Kent Downs.

Matthew Woodcock Forestry Commission South East England

Options for heating with wood

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Woodfuel types:

Conventional logs Wood Chips Wood Pellets

Wood is a little like crude oil, it can be refined into different products, each of which suites a particular use just like diesel or petrol

KDWfP Woodfuel Opportunities - July 2011

Conventional Logs
Convenient as long as you dont mind loading the systems and superb if you have your own woodland

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Wood burning stoves:

Stove Industries Alliance: estimate that in the UK:

160,000 stoves were fitted last year, 140,000 the year before, and 186,000 the year before that!
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Flint cottage

courtesy Thames Valley Energy

Following the loss of his thatched cottage to fire, Keith Richards, director of Thames Valley Energy applied the knowledge he has gained over many years to create an exemplar home heated with both woodfuel and solar panels. Solar voltaics also provide the electricity
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Flint cottage

(continued)

Wood fuel provides all hot water and space heating in winter

A combination of wood fuel and solar thermal work in the spring and autumn Solar thermal provides all hot water in the summer
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Flint cottage

(continued)

Solar thermal generates a third of hot water needed (5.1 kWth) Multifuel stove/ back boiler generates remaining space heat needs to a maximum of 19.2kWth 4kWe immersion heaters provide frostating and emergency back up

KDWfP Woodfuel Opportunities - July 2011

Flint cottage

(continued)

PV generates 60 - 70% electricity needs (3.06kWp)

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Load once a day and draw heat from accumulator

Batch Boilers:

30kW for 4 bed semi Installed for 7,000 Uses > 12 tonnes of wood per year
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Technology is ever more sophisticated Austrian KWB batch boiler

Community Firewood
Local people from Rodmell were frustrated by the poor quality and cost of woodfuel available locally. They are setting up their own community woodfuel scheme. WhS linked them to a local estate to supply cord wood for conversion into logs, seasoning and delivery by the woodfuel group

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Communal heating

Bruderhof community in East Kent Whole community is involved in processing and seasoning the woodfuel and loading the boiler

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Wood pellets
Offer the convenience of an oil fired boiler, require less space and cope well with varied loads but the fuel costs more than logs or chips

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Wood Pellet systems:

Technology is ever more sophisticated Austrian KWB pellet boiler. System designed to pneumatically draw a batch of pellets from an external pellet store (similar to a heating oil tank in the garden)

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Woodchips
Well suited to medium heat users but require space and easy access for the woodchip storage. Particularly well suited to farms and estates with their own woodland and farm equipment to facilitate self supply.
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Village scale woodheat:

West Dean

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West Dean

district heating network

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Farm scale woodheat:

Torry Hill Estate
Boiler house Great Higham Farm for ease of located Converted to holiday fuel delivery accommodation and heat provided by woodfuelled district heating system

Fuel store located for ease of access; plenty of space adjacent to stack wood for drying and then chip directly into the hopper = minimises handling and maximises efficiency 350kW boiler with buffer tank to balance load and programmable computer control Former buildings converted into holiday lets, swimming pool built and all linked to district heating system

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Estate scale woodheat

Stanstead Park - an exemplar of best practice

Location of woodheat barn/yard

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Stanstead Park (continued)

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Hughenden Manor

Former home of famous UK Prime Minister Disraeli Now owned by the National Trust, open for public visits and their regional headquarters 21 KDWfP Woodfuel Opportunities - July 2011

Hughenden Manor

(continued)

Boiler to be installed in former apple store

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Hughenden Manor outcome:

Boiler house converted from old apple store. New Chip bunker built alongside boiler house in local vernacular. Specification
220kW Froling boiler supplied and installed by Econergy. Fuel G50 W30 45m3 fuel store top loaded 4000l buffer tank 75mm diameter flow and return district heating pipes to mansion house (holding 1500l) Alfa Laval plate heat exchanger Kieback & Peter / Syxthsense BMS control system KDWfP Woodfuel Opportunities - July 2011

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Hughenden Manor outcome:

Woodchip supply:
Chip bunker designed to take advantage of the landform Delivery via tipper trailer or lorry with easy access from car park Easy open doors to chip bunker Delivery bunker protected by grill Bunker designed so that chips are dropped in the centre of the store allowing up to 80% of the 45m3 capacity to be used easily Chips supplied from a converted barn on Small Dean farm on the estate. Chips currently bought in but harvesting, seasoning and chipping programme is proceeding to allow estate to supply its own fuel needs

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KDWfP Woodfuel Opportunities - July 2011

Hughenden Manor

supply chain:

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KDWfP Woodfuel Opportunities - July 2011

Community scale woodheat:

Hoathly Hill Community
Residential community of 27 homes and about 70 people Heating originally by Calor gas Set up their own woodfuelled district heating system in 2007 See their Blog: http://home.btconnect.com/hoathlyhill/hhr/blog.html

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Lessons learnt by the community

Invest in efficiency works first Invest in other renewables together e.g. electricity Beware of in-experienced M&E consultants Much cheaper for new build than retrofit Try to get more capital in up-front to reduce loan costs Insist on good post-commissioning support It will take a year bed-in, fine-tune and learn

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Brightwalton

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Brightwalton

(continued)

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A business opportunity?
Straden, Austria

Local farmers sell woodheat to the villagers of Straden: Boiler house is built into the hillside Chip store takes advantage of the landform to allow easy delivery by tipping trailer; Large accumulator tank to optimise boiler efficiency; and Solar thermal panels provide heat in summer
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Woodheat for schools

Adj primary school which may be added to heat main in due course. Theres another off to the NE

Boiler House
Two 500kW Herz boilers squeezed into the old boiler room providing the base load for a district heating system for the whole site. Max load cover from another MW of oil

Beacon Community College

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Chip store

Surrey University

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Key pointers for schools

Rodborough School, Surrey

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Rodborough School (continued)

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Another business opportunity?

St Margarethen, Austria
Local farmers sell woodheat to local primary & secondary schools: Rent basement rooms and install: Fuel bunker, and Two woodfuel boilers (providing flexibility to address varied load while maintaining optimal boiler efficiency) Note: Farmers are not
planning further developments as this system uses all the wood they produce from their own woods, if they had to buy woodfuel on the open market the business model would be less attractive

Access to chip bunker

Agitator arms to push woodchips to auger feed for boilers

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District scale woodheat

Oakwood Park, Maidstone

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Oakwood Park (continued)

Easy access to major road network

Key buildings within Oakwood Park

Hospital complex

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KDWfP Woodfuel Opportunities - July 2011

Oakwood Park -

Potential fuel supply

Oaken Wood
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A typical opportunity?
Forestry Commission, Bedgebury, England

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Full sustainability?

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KDWfP Woodfuel Opportunities - July 2011

Modern technology
Compact harvester head with tracked rollers well suited broadleaf and even coppice

Finnish technology introduced to England:

(Valtra tractor, Botex 8m boom and Keto harvester head.)

Versatile and well suited to small woods with high environmental sensitivity
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High technology woodchipping from Komptech, Austria

Mobile high capacity woodchipping from Komptech

System has both shute and elevator delivery of woodchips. Elevator is more energy efficient, quieter and could be fitted to a woodchip delivery vehicle to allow easy delivery to above ground chip stores

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And for that oversized log!

If there is the odd large log which is no use as timber It can be made smaller to fit the chipper!

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Biomass Trade Centre

Waldstein, Austria

The concept of the Biomass Trade Centre is an effective way to store, dry and retail a range of woodfuel types
Here wood is seasoned over a summer reducing moisture content from 50% to about 30% (by overall weight) in the open air and chipped (as illustrated in previous slides) by a contract chipper. If a lower moisture content is needed then ambient air can be blown through the woodchip store via a vented floor

Ventilating fan

Ventilated floor of chip store

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Biomass Trade Centre

Hartberg, Austria

Firewood is cut and seasoned in metal cages. Buyers pay on basis of energy value assessed by weight and moisture content
(buyers select three logs from cage and these are tested using a moisture meter)
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Biomass Trade Centre

Woodchip delivery

Ideally woodchips will be delivered using a tipping trailer (as this keeps costs down). However, for those sites where access to the chip bunker is restricted woodchips can be delivered pnuematically. But this is noisy, time consuming and costly so void if you can!
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Further information:

www.woodheatsolutions.eu

www.biomassenergycentre.org.uk
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