The Future of Firewood - New Commercial Woodfuel Opportunities

It’s hard to imagine that in this high-tech age the demand for something as basic as wood for fuel is growing substantially. Yet whilst gas, oil, coal and nuclear may still be the main energy sources, the movement towards safe, sustainable and environmentally friendly fuel sources like wood has never been greater.

Trees are brilliant. They play a pivotal role in the global environment providing oxygen, improving air quality, climate amelioration, conserving water, preserving soil and supporting wildlife as well as giving great aesthetic value and making the world a much prettier and pleasing place in which to live. Growing trees as a renewable crop still provides all these benefits whilst still resulting in a viable energy source.

Whilst we in the developed countries have moved to other fuel sources, over half the world’s population still use wood as their main energy source for heating and cooking. But to a degree, this is now changing. The fear of ever-decreasing fossil fuel supplies, the huge political games between the haves and have-not countries about oil and gas supply, and the fear of nuclear plant disasters is driving us back to looking closer to home for our energy and for safe renewal sources.

Woodfuel is now an integral part of the UK government’s energy policy and they have set a target to achieve 15% of all energy from renewables by 2020. In its ‘National Renewable Energy Action Plan’ the government sets out plans to bring an additional 2 million tonnes of woodfuel into energy markets in England alone. At current bulk cordwood prices this would generate an additional £100m of revenue to the market and many times that figure when processed as firewood, kindling or woodchip.

This additional woodfuel alone could provide 4.4TWh of heat, sufficient to supply 800 hospitals, or 3,000 schools or 250,000 homes. Using this quantity of wood instead of fossil fuel could save 1.5 million tonnes (Mt) of CO2 each year. Furthermore, ‘The Renewable Heat Incentive 5’ (RHI), announced in the UK in 2011, is the world’s first financial incentive of its kind. It is likely to significantly increase demand for woodfuel and revolutionise the renewable heat sector. The RHI at last properly acknowledges the role that fuel harvested from sustainably managed woodlands has in developing the green economy. To read more about RHI follow this link to Ofgem website

There are many privately and publicly owned woodlands in the UK, many of which are not being actively managed for woodfuel. The government aims to change this and to encourage schemes which have the potential to provide local businesses with income, and more control over how their energy is sourced. The RHI has the potential to stimulate demand for several million tonnes of biomass from a variety sources, in particular woodfuel from existing and currently unmanaged, woodlands. There are also ongoing government plans in place to increase the creation rates of new commercial woodland by 10,000 hectares per annum.

The firewood market is growing rapidly, largely due to demand for modern log stoves. According to the Stove Alliance Industry (SIA) more than 200,000 UK home owners installed wood burning stoves last year alone, showing a 20% year-on-year growth. They say a wood burning stove is 77% cheaper to run than an equivalent output electric fire, 29% cheaper than gas, 43% cheaper than oil and 50% less than LPG. Furthermore, firewood has many times lower CO2 emissions than oil, gas or coal-fuel created electricity. These cost comparisons will of course change over time as demand increases and supply varies, but woodfuel seems likely to be able to hold its own long into the future as a viable green and cost effective energy source.

The implications for the woodfuel industry are of course all very positive. There will be opportunities to take on the commercial management of more existing woodlands for woodfuel production, and to plant and create new commercial woodland and therefore build successful commercial woodfuel businesses. The industry will need to embrace the challenges of producing woodfuel as effectively, quickly and inexpensively as possible to create ever-increasing volume and more factory-like production facilities. Good profits are there to be made as demand and prices increase.

Fuelwood have already seen this future and have been developing new machinery capable of large commercial woodfuel output facilities. The new ‘Fuelwood Factory’ is the outcome of many years engineering development based on the huge experience and input from our commercial woodfuel customers. It is a revolution in high-volume firewood production using automatic machinery to reduce cost and improve productivity.

The new ‘Fuelwood Factory’ concept is based around the all new Woodcutta 400, a fully automatic, high volume, cross cutting machine. This starts the firewood production process by producing UK or European specification timber rings from bulk cordwood up to 450mm in diameter. Capable of producing up to 13 solid cubic m3 per hour, the Woodcutta 400 then directly feeds into either a Fuelwood Splitta 360, 400 or Kindlet Pro dependent on the firewood or kindling output requirements. Combined with various options of the Fuelwood Timber Feed Deck, Elevator and Log Cleana, these create an entirely bespoke ‘Fuelwood Factory’ producing high volumes of firewood as quickly and cost effectively as possible. The perfect set up for the growing commercial operator looking to capitalise on this growing firewood market.

To find out more we have produced a short video ‘The Future of Firewood’ introducing the all new Woodcutta 400 and the various Fuelwood Factory options based around it. The first ever live demonstration of this amazing high volume ‘Fuelwood Factory’ will be on Saturday July 26th 2014 10.00am to 12.00noon at Fuelwood’s factory in Warwick. It’s really something not to be missed by anyone serious about being a key player in the woodfuel industry, and we invite you to come along and see ‘The Future of Firewood’.