We made it through Brexit (or have we?) and Covid-19 ... and now an energy shortage. The UK woodworking industry. in the main, is dependent on electricity to run the machinery, and gas or oil to heat the premises. With recent low wind levels and a global shortage of gas, where is the heating and power coming from?
At least four more energy supply companies are on the brink, according to OFGEM, and with prices capped the consumer will get some limit to the rise in bills, but industry won’t. Wholesale gas prices in the UK have increased six-fold over the last 12 months, and this will be passed on to industry.
The UK woodworking industry can help itself. Most manufacturing units have large expanses of roof and a ready supply of woodwaste.
Ranheat Engineering are a UK-based manufacturer (manufacturing in Northampton) of industrial, wood-fired boilers and heaters, able to burn all types of woodwaste including fine dusts and man-made boards (MFC and MDF, as well as OSB and other plyboards).
Boilers and heaters are available from as small as 150kW (which will heat around 10,000ft2 of factory) up to plants of several MW output. With a sixfold increase in wholesale gas prices, there has never been a better time to invest in a wood-fired heating system from Ranheat Engineering.
All wood processors have some form of dust extraction system, from simple bag units where the bags of dust can be emptied into a simple ‘bag-loader’, to a purpose-made transfer system into a metal storage silo, directly off the main extraction system.
All Ranheat systems are bespoke installations – with Ranheat manufacturing almost all of the system (including the boiler/heater, the storage silos, the feed system as well as the flue-gas cleaning), there are no concerns about delays (as if shipping systems from abroad). All of the cutting, bending, rolling and welding is carried out in-house.
I remember the start of the UK woodburning industry in the early 80s. Oil prices globally rose 15-fold in a year – we went from cheap energy to no energy in a very short space of time. Now it is more about greenhouse gasses and emissions, as well as cost.
Using woodwaste that is a by-product of a wood manufacturing process has got to make sense – when the wood-manufactured item comes to the end of its life, it can be recycled into energy.
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www.ranheat.com
