Benefits
The benefits to using wood heating for farms and estates properties are clear. For many of these businesses, log or wood chip fuel can be produced in-house, either using home grown timber, or by buying in timber locally and processing this into wood fuel in-house.
Farms and estates are often well positioned to produce fuel in this way as they often have machinery, buildings and space available. Producing fuel in this manner translates to providing a very low cost, renewable and sustainable source of fuel which can be used to displace existing, often very expensive forms of fossil fuel heating.
The benefits of doing this include:
1) Cost Savings: Wood fuel can be produced in-house for as little as 1.5 pence per kWh, as opposed to approximately 6 pence per kWh for heating oil, giving potential fuel cost savings of over 60%.
2) Sustainability: ‘Chip‘ and thinning timber may be of little value when sold to traditional markets, however they are perfect for use as wood fuel. The relatively simple process of producing wood fuel will add considerable value to this timber product. If you consider the heating energy value of a tonne of wood chip fuel against the equivalent heating oil cost, it equates to a value of £180.00 for the tonne of wood fuel, without having to transport it. This is evidently considerably more than would be received for selling for chip board! The ability to add value to this resource, and save thousands on fossil fuel costs will ensure that the business as a whole is more self sustaining.
3) Carbon Savings: As a carbon neutral fuel source, the replacement of fossil fuel heating with wood fuel will lead to tonnes of CO2 emissions savings per annum.
4) Satisfaction: It feels great!
More information is available through the ‘guide’ section.
