What is the pellet?
Wood pellets are a condensed uniformly sized form of biomass energy and are one of the most popular renewable energy sources available across the world. Produced by crushing and densifying waste timber like sawdust and forestry residues. They are cylindrical in shape and general measure 6 or 8 mm in diameter and 15-40 mm in length.
What is the pellet used for?
Wood pellet is an economical and eco-friendly fuel used in houses, industry or public buildings or in gastronomy. Characteristic of wood pellet is very easy to manage compared to other biomass fuel. As the shape and hydrous rate are stable, wood pellet is suitable to use in automatic combustion installation and it can remarkably save time and labor for both of electric power generation boiler and pellet stove for house. It is possible to transport long distance because wood pellet has high energy density and much energy can be transported at once.
Minimal ash quantity (usually up to 0,5%) left after pellet burning can be used as a fertilizer.
Wood pellet is currently widely used in western Europe and Scandinavian countries. Recently its popularity has increased in central Europe, also in Poland.
Why wood pellet is the best choice?
- It has high calorific value
– 1 ton of pellet gives you the same quantity of heat as approximately: 430 l of LPG, 500 l of oil or 0,79 t eco-pea coal. - It is easy to transport and store
– pellet is being sold in 15-kg ergonomic bags on pallets and it needs 2 m3 of storage space. Bulk pellet needs 1,7 m3 of storage space. - It reduces the cost of heating
– up to 50% compared to LPG or fuel oil. - It is convenient and clean
– Pellet stoves are clean and they produce very little ash as opposed to eco-pea coal, carbon coke or culm. The pellet stove automatically feeds the pellets into the burning chamber at just the right rate to produce the amount of heat that you want. Pellet burning stoves are thermostatically controlled and will maintain the temperature you choose. - After burning ash amount is around 0,3-0,5%
– This is 30 times less than from eco-pea coal, that is so popular in polish houses! It means that from 1 ton of combusted pellet we have 5 kg of ash, whereas from 1 ton of eco-pea coal – 150 kg. Moreover, pellet ash is ecological and you can easily use it as a valuable fertilizer. - It is eco-friendly for our environment
– Pellet is produced from waste timber like sawdust and forestry residues, so from materials that were known to be useless. Additionally, using pellet as a fuel isn’t harmful for the environment, as opposed to eco-pea coal or fuel oil. - It is not unwholesome for our health
– High quality pellet doesn’t contain any additives, chemical compounds or harmful substances. During combustion there are not being emitted odors. It does not cause any allergies.
Pellet and environment
Use of pellets has many advantages, but because of today society’s rising awareness, very important is ecological aspect.
Pellet production is based on material that practically cannot be used anywhere else – wood-derive raw materials, such as shavings, saw dust, cuttings. Because of high-tech techniques used during production process it is also harmless for environment.
Fossil fuels, such as duel oil, LPG or coal (also eco-pea coal) are nonrenewable sources of energy, so their reserves are gradually running out. Additionally, their extraction and exploitation cause continuous environment degradation. We can also predict that constantly increasing demand with decreasing supply of these fuels will lead to considerable prices growth.
Pellet however is produces from biomass so this is a renewable source of energy. Its use is not harmful for environment – combustion of biomass, including pellet, releases only the amount of carbon dioxide during the process equal to the amount consumed by plants during photosynthesis, so the total balance is 0.
What is more, the ash left after pellet combustion is perfects to use a fertilizer because of its appropriate qualities and lack of harmful substances.
All of the points mentioned above prove the biofuels are in many aspects more eco-friendly than fossil fuels.
