Alternate Energy and Using Wood Pellet Stoves and Boilers

As you obviously know, we need to start using other forms of energy apart from simply using oil, gas and coal. So what alternate form of energy do we have available to us? Well, when people talk about 'green energy' technologies such as wind and solar get references often, however neither of these solutions is a practical source of all heat demand for a property. This is where biomass and wood have their part to play. Wood may not seem like an alternate form of energy, since it was used long before fossil fuels. However, simply burning logs is not a practical and efficient form of wood energy, to get the most out of the wood it needs to be process and then burnt efficiently to produce little smoke.

Alternate Energy and Using Wood Pellet Stoves and Boilers

So how do we turn wood into an efficient form of alternate energy? We need to increase the woods density as a fuel, we need to reduce its moisture content and then make a fuel which is consistent in size. The easiest way to do this is to compress the wood into pellet form. To make a wood pellet, a pellet mill is used, however the wood is also dried to remove most the water. As you know, water doesn't burn, and most logs and wood chips to consumers as fuel still contains between 30-40% moisture. Now, this not only means consumers are actually paying fuel prices for water, it also reduces the efficiency of the fuel, creating more ash and smoke and less heat. This is another advantage with wood and biomass pellet fuel, it always has a moisture below 10%.

Alternative Energy Source

Renewable Energy Source

Alternate Energy and Using Wood Pellet Stoves and Boilers

So once the wood or biomass pellet fuel has been produces, how do you use the fuel efficiently? Well, you can use wood and biomass pellets in any solid fuel stove or boiler with the help of a pellet basket. While pellets will produce more heat and burn cleaner than logs, this still is not really taking advantage of the benefits of pellet fuel. Pellets have a fairly uniform size and shape, this means automated combustion systems can be designed around them such as pellet stoves and boilers. However, you cannot presume that most pellet stoves and boilers can burn all types of pellet fuel, as many can only use premium grade wood pellet fuel. The pellet boiler in the video above can burn any grade of wood or biomass pellet fuel, meaning any local source of alternate biomass waste can be processed locally into fuel pellets such as straws and grasses.

The Wood Pellet Stoves and Wood Boiler Guide © PelHeat Ltd - Alternate Energy