Biomass Systems

Biomass Heating Systems burn woody biomass in the form of wood pellets, briquettes, Heat Logs, wood chips or logs. Biomass Heating Systems include central heating and hot water boilers, wood burning stoves and Hot Air Space Heaters.

A range of biomass fuel-burning appliances are designed to provide space heating and water heating in a variety of situations, varying from heating a single room in a house to heating the entire house and adjacent workshop. Larger scale applications include industrial space heating and district heating systems.

Domestic wood burning systems are usually fuelled by hand; commercial heating systems fuelled by wood chip biomass incorporate automatic fuel feeding facilities.



Biomass fuel is produced from a variety of sources. In the UK the most common biomass fuel is woody biomass. Apart from logs, woody biomass fuel is available as chipped wood, pellets and briquettes.
 
Wood Chip biomass fuel utilises "small round-wood" (the residue left behind after felling operations, when the "saw log" timber is removed and sent to the sawmills.) Small round-wood is basically the tops of the trees and branches, generally under 10" diameter. After being stacked to season, or dry out, for between 9 to 12 months until the moisture content is less than 35% the small round-wood is chipped to produce high quality, fuel-grade woodchips.

Short rotation coppice biomass crops - such as willow and poplar - can also be chipped, as can woodland lop and top, or green wood residues from sawmills.

A further source of biomass is miscanthus, a large fibrous grass, related to the sugarcane. Miscanthus is compressed and converted into pellets, briquettes and heat logs.