Biomass boilers

Fuel

Wood pellets
Wood pellets are the most preferred fuel. The smell is good, the well-know wood smell is usually experienced as pleasant or acceptable, there is few to no smoke development and only 0,5% ash formation. Another advantage is that it remains annealing for a long time. The boiler can restart quickly because of this. The price is somewhat equal to the barley price. However, the calorific value is about 20% higher than that of most biomass fuels, because of which wood pellets are eventually cheaper. The calorific value is about 18,5 MJ per kilo, Wood pellets are available from 14 cents per kilo, depending on the size of the storage capacity: the bigger the storage, the lower the price.

Chips
Wood chips are an excellent alternative for wood pellets. Chips have a huge price advantage (around 100 euro’s per ton) but there are disadvantages. De boiler is slightly more complicated (fuel tank with sweep mortar) and therefore more expensive with purchase. The storage of chips is also not as simple as for example pellets that can be blown into a silo. The supply of fuel to the fuel tank from the hopper requires more labour. Finally, the availability and quality (moisture level and size of the chips) is not as guaranteed as that of the wood pellets.