Chris Franklin, Chairman at Ranheat Engineering Ltd, a leading UK manufacturer of wood combustion equipment, continues his series of articles exclusively for Furniture and Joinery Production. This month, he writes further about spiralling costs for energy due to the continued conflict between Iran, USA and Israel, suggesting that there has never been a better time to invest in a wood-fired boiler or heater.
With conventional fuel costs rising and increases in landfill tax, the case for investing in self sufficiency has never been stronger.
Due to the recent storm Dave, the UK produced over the amount of electricity needed per day. This excess can only be stored in batteries.
Most automatically-fed wood-fired systems are located near the dust extraction system for the factory so that the extracted wood-waste can easily be transferred to a storage silo and then automatically fed into a boiler or heater.
In a wood-fired heating system, the silo can be the “battery” or energy store. Store the energy before producing it rather than the other way around.
Using the ORC method (Organic Rankine Cycle, electricity can be produced. An Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) generator is a method that converts low-to-medium temperature heat (e.g., waste biomass) into electricity using an organic fluid with a lower boiling point than water. Operating in a closed loop, the fluid vaporises to drive a turbine that generates electricity.
Many Ranheat customers produce large amounts of wood-waste, often from manmade boards such as MDF, MFC Plywood etc. These man-made boards, when machined using modern CNC machinery, can often produce a fine dust or “flour”. Disposal of these fine dusts can be difficult and expensive unless used as a fuel in a Ranheat automatically-fed woodfired system. In addition to electricity, the ORC can be used to produce cooling or “air conditioning” for use in hotter climates. For example, there are countries around the world where cooling of factories in the summer costs more than the heating in the winter.
By utilising your wood-waste you are reducing the country’s dependency on oil and gas. Saving money and the environment at the same time.
Contact Ranheat for further information on all types and sizes of Industrial Woodburning equipment from 75 kW upwards. Ranheat also make spares and service and repair other makes of woodburning boilers and heaters.
01604 750005
