Handling and monitoring systems for wood pellets

Wood Pellet Systems was established in August 2010 as a separate business operating within the wood pellet supply company Forever Fuels.  Our aim is to to address a perceived gap in the biomass heat market around the specification and installation of ancillary equipment associated with wood pellet heating projects.

Our initial focus is the implementation of pellet storage systems.  Whilst there are admittedly any number of products available in today's market for such purpose, in our experience many lack one or more of the features that combine to make for a faultless installation as measured by the level of degradation to the pellets that occurs on their journey from leaving the delivery vehicle to reaching the biomass burner. Some degradation to the pellets is of course inevitable but this can be tempered by careful consideration when configuring the store.  Some common oversights include:

1.  The point to which the delivery vehicle can access is remote from the location of the boiler room which necessitates that pellets be blown along an extended length of pipe with an attendant risk of increased pellet degradation.  Even assuming good vehicle access to site is possible, the pellets may have to be blown along a lengthy and indirect internal route before reaching the location of the store and this again stands to jeopardise pellet quality.

2.  The point and direction of entry into the pellet store may give rise to undue collisions, be that with the sides of the store or between the pellets themselves, again leading to a deterioration in integrity of the fuel.  Ideally the top of the entry point should lie approximately 200 millimetres beneath the store's ceiling and be fairly central located so as to present the best opportunity for even filling withijn the store to occur.  If the point of access to the store is poorly located, for example too low or too off-centre, then the inlet may become unavoidably blocked at an early stage during the delivery and as well as acting as a cap on the volume of pellets that can be accepted will lead to a higher effective unit cost from the requirement for more frequent deliveries than otherwise.