Ranheat Engineering is well known as a leading provider of industrial wood waste/biomass-fired boilers, heaters and burners. In this article, the company’s Chris Franklin explains what users of wood burning equipment should be aware of in respect of permitting of all sizes of installations burning wood and also the specific requirements of being accepted onto the Renewable Heat Incentive.
Ranheat Engineering specialise in the design, manufacture, installation and servicing of wood-fired boiler systems, primarily for use in the woodworking industry.
In earlier years, projects have been driven by the huge financial savings over skips in the disposal of woodwaste particularly in fine dusts from man-made boards such as MDF and MFC to landfill.
Added to this was the free heat that wood-fired heating systems gave the owners, either as space heating but also as process heat, supplying replacement air for spray rooms drying tunnels etc.
In recent years the Government-led Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) has been a massive incentive to the UK woodworking Industry to use its wood residues as a source of energy.
The Renewable Heat Incentive is applicable to boilers within the woodworking industry.
The permit flow chart explains what permits may be required by the local authority. Some of them may be in place, so will require a substantial change being registered with the regulator.
The bands that the RHI has are small biomass boilers (less than 200kW) medium Biomass boilers (200-1000kW) and large (over 1000kW).
The scheme is administered by OFGEM on behalf of DECC and the government. I have assumed at this stage that you will be looking at a boiler in the medium size range.
In simple terms the government pays a tariff to the owner of the equipment at an agreed rate per kW/hour for a period of 20 years from accreditation. This payment is index linked and rises each April in line with inflation. The current tier 1 tariff is 5.24p per kW/hour, for this size of boiler – medium biomass
