Welcome to the West Midlands woodfuel website – you will find a great deal of information here and links to information on other websites.
In the West Midlands we want to build on the experience from the region, so enabling the West Midlands to achieve leadership in England through the West Midlands Regional Wood Fuel Strategy, 2003 (pdf 592k)
Our priority is to facilitate the utilisation of wood from our 'region's woodlands' and bring under-managed woodlands back into sustainable management for the benefit of biodiversity and climate change. This will contribute to national targets of bringing an additional two million tonnes of wood, annually to market by 2020 as stated in the Woodfuel Strategy for England.
We aim to do this by working with partners to :
- Promote wood energy
- Create a market
- Increase knowledge and skill through outreach and training
- Develop an integrated wood supply chain
Activity is co-ordinated through the Wood Energy Task Group (WETG) network and links to other key regional organisations and networks such as Heartwoods and BioenergyWM.
Activity has increased rapidly from two to three boiler installations a year (2003) to 12 to 15 (2009), with an estimated 6000MW of installed woodheating capacity (Midlands Woodfuel Ltd, jun 09) and 2.2MW of biomass power. There are now at least three wood fuel chip suppliers and several pellet suppliers and woodfuel is firmly on the regional agenda.
We have been working with a wide range of regional partners, many of whom are linked into the WETG to promote the benefits of woodfuel and secure support for boilers and supply chain equipment. Examples are:
Securing funding from Advantage West Midlands (AWM) and European Union objective-two to run Heartwoods Phase 1 (2002-2005) supporting the development of woodfuel via advice, grants and information
- Working with Defra, AWM and Harper Adams to establish the successful BioenergyWM training and networking project
- RE:think Energy grant for businesses within the Rural Regeneration Zone – supporting energy audits and renewable energy installations including woodfuel boilers and supply chain equipment
- Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE) funding through AWM – supporting renewable energy installations including woodfuel boilers and supply chain equipment and increasing capacity in the supply chain through proposed funding for Heartwoods
- Helping regional businesses find out about and apply for grants for woodfuel equipment, producer groups etc
