Isn’t burning wood bad for the environment?
Carbon Dioxide emissions from woodfuel systems are 95% lower than gas, oil, LPG or electric systems in most cases. This is because the carbon dioxide that is released from burning wood was the same amount that was absorbed from the atmosphere during the growth of the trees. The only new carbon dioxide released is from the fossil fuel used during its processing and transport, which is why woodfuel works best at a local scale.
Sulphur Dioxide emissions from woodfuel boilers are also much lower than other fossil fuels and the emissions of other air pollutants such as small particles (PM10 and PM2.5) and Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) are lower than coal, equivalent to oil and only slightly higher than gas fired boilers. A guide to biomass and air quality can be found here.
How much woodfuel does Yorkshire & the Humber have?
Forest Research, part of the Forestry Commission have an interactive tool to help make an assessment of the woodfuel resources available in Yorkshire & the Humber. It gives a guide to what the region has and what the potential for production is, it looks at woodlands, arboriculture and short rotation coppice. The tool can be accessed here.
Where can I buy woodfuel?
For regional suppliers see our regional Directory or the Biomass Energy Centre website for National suppliers.
Where can I find advice on how to produce woodfuel from my woodland?
The Forestry Commission has produced a Technical Note that provides guidance on the four factors to consider in woodfuel production; Woodland Type & Woodfuel Products, Site Management & Constraints, Harvesting Systems and Machinery for Extraction options. This note also includes a series of cases studies. Small-scale Systems for Harvesting Woodfuel Products is available here.
What does Woodfuel cost to produce?
Woodfuel production costs vary with terrain, tree size and species, labour availability and distance from both forest to processor and processor to market i.e. haulage. However as a very rough guide;
- felling and extracting timber to roadside will be up to £20-25 per cubic metre for small-scale operations in hardwoods
- £8-10 per cubic metre in large-scale, mechanised conifer clearfells
- haulage costs will be dependent on journey times and lengths and load capacity expect £8.5–16 per cubic meter
- producing woodchips from extracted timber will cost around £10 per cubic meter.
- storing and drying timber prior to chipping £10 per cubic meter
For more details there is a report written by the NNFCC and ADAS, Addressing the land use issues for non-food crops, in response to increasing fuel and energy generation opportunities - see here.
What about using Waste Wood?
Clean untreated waste wood, especially if it is kiln dried can make good, cheap fuel. For information on what constitutes 'clean, waste wood' see the Environment Agencies position statement.
Why are wood-fuelled boilers more expensive?
The capital costs of wood-fuelled systems are higher than for oil or gas because the systems tend to be larger and involve a higher degree of engineering, due to the physical properties of wood, but the outlay can be recovered through lower fuel costs. The pay back time for the extra capital can be as little as three to five years. Wood chip fired heating systems of less than 500kW cost between £350-950 per output kW, but for systems over 500kW, capital costs fall to £350-450 per kW. This covers the core components; the boiler and handling system, flow and return systems and piping. Pellet systems tend to be cheaper. The capital costs of installation of a wood-fired heating system are variable and additional costs, such as a fuel reception facility and boiler house etc, may add to them. These figures should therefore be seen as a guide only.
It is also worth noting in recognition of the potential of woodfuel to reduce carbon emissions, there are a number of schemes that will give grant support to help cover capital outlay on renewable energy sources, for more information see our Benefits and Grants page.
Where are the markets?
Schools, colleges, care homes, prisons, domestic properties and businesses are switching to wood fuelled heating. Yorkshire and The Humber has recently invested in some 350+ boilers (chip, pellet or batch log) and thousands of domestic log-fired stoves see our Case Studies for examples.
What returns can I expect?
- Local woodlands provide low value fuel for heating. Many country estates have installed large-scale systems to save costs by generating heat from their own woods.
- Clean wood by-products (e.g. from tree surgery or saw milling) can be readily sold into the woodfuel supply chain. These often take the form of briquettes, pellets or kindling.
- Woodfuel systems have lower lifetime (typically 20 years) costs than fossil fuel plants. They are generally cheaper to run than heating oil, LPG and electricity and produce lower carbon emissions.
- The firewood market can provide lower scale ingress into woodfuel supply and aid forestry based businesses cash flow; acting as a stepping stone into wider scale woodfuel supply.
How can woodfuel benefit wildlife and landscape conservation?
- Cutting wood opens up woodlands for flowers, insects, birds and small mammals letting in light.
- Cherished woodlands are seldom ‘natural’ but have developed thanks to a long history of management by man. New woodfuel markets will secure the future of historic wooded landscapes.
Woodfuel Quality – what do you mean?
- Quality is critical. Clean wood with a low moisture content and consistent size is essential. Fuel quality, wood chippers and pellets provide this - for regional suppliers see here.
- Woodfuel is generally graded and boilers are rated to accept a particular standard of fuel. Sub standard chips or pellets will block the boiler feed and its operation.
- Suppliers must comply with boiler requirements and their specified production procedures.
- For more information about woodfuel quality standards see the Biomass Energy Centre.
What contract options are available?
- Selling by the load/per m3, delivered to the end user.
- Selling standing in the wood or cut at roadside to an intermediary.
- Selling heat, an energy services contract (ESCo) where the supplier owns the boiler and the user only pays for the metered heat used.
The Forestry Commission together with The Landscape Partnership has published a guide to Woodfuel Planning. It sets out the forestry and related policy context for planners and woodfuel developers and hopefully will lead to a smoother planning process and more informed planning applications, see it here.
Which type of woodfuel system should I install?
I'm a planning officer what should I consider?
- Is the proposed site in or adjacent to an AQMA?
- Is the site in a Priority Area / Hotspot for sustainable development?
- Is this a smoke control area?
- A buildings conservation area?
- Simple building survey?
- Potential receptors and proximity of them?
- What is the topography?
- Access for delivery vehicles and fuel storage?
- On the gas network or not?
I'm a design engineer what should I consider?
- Size - MW thermal or electrical?
- Will the burn rate exceed 45.4 kg /hour?
- Exit velocity, temperature, stack height and diameter
- Will the operation regime entail: Low, intermediate and high loads?
- Any auxiliary boilers to run on fossil fuel?
- If flow is increased by reducing the duct diameter will this compromise boiler performance?
- Has suitable fuel storage been incorporated to keep moisture low (as supplier certifies)?
- What is the fuel feed design?
- Air flow control-re-circulation and abatement selection?
Does using wood pellets from overseas mean that the carbon footprint is as high as gas, oil or coal?
You should minimise emissions from transport wherever possible, which means using local woodfuel, but you could ship it right round the globe (40,000 km) and still have a carbon footprint compared to any fossil fuel.
If you’re uncertain whether to go for chips, logs or pellets, space heating only or a hot water boiler, this decision tree diagram may help.
How much woodland do I need to heat my building?
If you have a biomass boiler project in mind and you would like to estimate how much woodland might be required to provide fuel for it, this How much land spreadsheet might help.
What are the planning restrictions for my woodfuel business?
Using agricultural buildings for log and wood fuel is a bit of a grey area, however you should try the argument that the building you want falls under the definition of agriculture on the following basis:
The definition of agriculture (s336 Town & Country Planning Act 1990) is as follows:
“Agriculture includes horticulture, fruit growing, seed growing, dairy farming, the breeding and keeping of livestock (including any creature kept for the production of food, wool, skins and fur, or for the purpose of its use in the farming of land), the use of land as grazing land, meadow land, osier land, market gardens and nursery grounds, and the use of land for woodlands where that use is ancillary to the farming of land for other agricultural purposes, and “agricultural”.
shall be construed accordingly;”
How many buildings could my woodland supply?
If you own an area of woodland in the Yorkshire and The Humber and would like to estimate how many buildings of different types and sizes it might be able to supply, download this How many buildings spreadsheet.
How do I convert between different pricing units?
If you are used to selling your wood in cubic metres of roundwood but you’re being asked for a price in cubic metres of chip or even in p/kWh how do you convert the price? This price conversion spreadsheet might help.
Can I sell my woodfuel to national government organisation or local authorities?
Yes, but the UK Government and shortly all local authorities will be subject to CPET. This is to ensure sustainable use of wood, woodfuel and wood products across the UK.
I have read that burning wood might not be that 'green', is that true?
The direct Carbon Dioxide emissions from producing 1MWh of heat energy from wood are roughly the same as for coal and significantly more than for oil and gas. However, provided the wood is sourced from a well managed woodland, then carbon released from the wood during combustion will be removed from the atmosphere as the remaining trees and seedlings photosynthesize. Imagine a 15ha block of chestnut coppice managed on a 15 year rotation and producing 4 oven dry tonnes per year. Assume dry wood has a carbon content of 50%. To ensure a steady supply of fuel is produced, 1ha of coppice is harvested each year. This means each year 60 oven dry tonnes of wood is harvested from the site (15 years x 4 oven dry tonnes per year) and used as fuel. When it is burned this releases roughly 30 tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere. After harvest the coppice stools will produce new shoots and as a whole, each year, the coppice woodland will produce 60 tonnes of new wood (15ha x 4 oven dry tonnes per year), removing 30 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere. As a result the carbon flow between the coppice and the atmosphere is zero.
If you imagine this principle expanded to take into account woodland management at a landscape scale with individual hectares of coppice being replaced by different woodland coupes being harvested or thinned, then the carbon flow between woodland and atmosphere remains zero. This is sometimes referred to by researchers involved in greenhouse gas and energy balance studies as a 'normal forest'. In practice a small amount of fossil fuel will be burned during felling, extraction and processing operations. Overall this results in very low net carbon emissions to the atmosphere. The Forestry Commission has produced an Information Note of UK Forests, Carbon and Climate Change the IEA Bioenergy Task38, also created "Greenhouse Gas Balances of Biomass and Bioenergy Systems"which has further information.
If deforestation operations are used to produce fuel and no new growth is encouraged then carbon emissions will approach those of conventional fossil fuel systems. If carbon stored in the soil of these forests is also burned as part of these clearance operations then higher emissions still would result. However, no one involved in the developing woodfuel supplychain in the UK is encouraging this type of operation, for one thing they would soon run out of raw material (forest) to produce the fuel they are selling or using. At the moment governments are working on establishing 'sustainability criteria' that will help ensure that biomass is harvested in a sustainable manner. The work of IEA Bioenergy Task 40 may be of interest.
When using coal, oil or gas, unless carbon capture and storage in used, carbon released during combustion remains in the atmosphere. Fuel is also burned as these materials are mined, refined, transported and stored.
Overall life cycle figures for carbon released by different fuel types are shown in this table.
If you are looking for more information on wood and its use as fuel our national pages have a frequently ask questions page available here. We also have information sheets available here.
Where can I get advice?
There are a number of fuel suppliers - woodchip, pellets, briquettes, heat logs and firewood logs, installers, forestry management consultants/contractors and appliance suppliers across the region; that can help bring your woodland back into active management, help fit a wood fired appliance, and provide you with a modern, efficient heating appliance. Details can be found here. There are also a number of local organisation operating across the region that can help with larger scale heating installations, these would be 25Kw and above, North and East Yorkshire is served by Yorwoods and South & West Yorkshire, North and North East Lincolnshire by the South Yorkshire Forest Partnership. The White Rose Forest services West Yorkshire.
Regen South West has produced a number of excellent guides to help people utilise woodfuel as their heating source. They cover planning, fuel storage, fuel quality, fuel processing and distribution and handling.
