Wood pellet boilers

tinyboytim

Hello everyone - I was just wondering if anyone had any further news on assistance with wood pellet consumption. Seems the cartel that sell the wood pellets have well and truly taken advantage of the energy inflation and stuck it to us. Seems 600 pounds a tonne has been normalised now. This was less than 300 pounds last year. Any information would be appreciated.

FreeBear

tinyboytim said: Seems the cartel that sell the wood pellets have well and truly taken advantage of the energy inflation and stuck it to us. Seems 600 pounds a tonne has been normalised now. This was less than 300 pounds last year.

You need to bear in mind that producing pellets consumes quite a bit of energy. The raw timber needs to be ground down into sawdust and then extruded under high pressure to produce the pellets. None of that comes cheap, and the "cartels" will be paying commercial rates for their electricity.

BUFF

not to mention https://www.ampcleanenergy.com/blog/how-the-ukraine-crisis-caused-a-global-wood-pellet-shortage

Bennoa1b

We’re not rural but on a private lane near Redditch which has absorbed the original village area.  We got a quote for mains gas 10 years ago but £24k was unrealistic, when houses less than 30m away have mains gas.  We went with a biomass boiler as air source doesn’t work well when it really cold and before we had the biomass we had no central heating, which we do have now.  Hot water was heater with electric so this is now also heated with the biomass.  We live in a grade 2 listed reasonably big farmhouse which is single glazed, although about 50% of the rooms now have secondary glazing and we are installing more. We use about 7 pallets of bagged pellets each year but the price in April was £275, and now it’s £600+.  Our electric bills are £150 a month on top.  Understand fuel costs have increased but feel it’s another jump on the bandwagon.  Ours are uk sourced wood so Ukraine doesn’t enter the equation.  Be great to get some help but suspect not.  I had retired but going to have to go back to work given our costs have more than doubled in less than 12 months.

Qyburn

Bennoa1b said:

Ours are uk sourced wood so Ukraine doesn’t enter the equation.

Supply and demand don't quite work like that, the people previously buying Ukranian wood will now be competing for what is still available, driving up prices of other supply sources.

Regarding Government support you should be getting the almost mythical £200 payment if that ever actually materialises in a month or so.

By the way, you give your prices per pallet, what is that per ton or per kg? (or per kWh for that matter)

Bennoa1b

Qyburn said:

Bennoa1b said:

Ours are uk sourced wood so Ukraine doesn’t enter the equation.

Supply and demand don't quite work like that, the people previously buying Ukranian wood will now be competing for what is still available, driving up prices of other supply sources.

Regarding Government support you should be getting the almost mythical £200 payment if that ever actually materialises in a month or so.

By the way, you give your prices per pallet, what is that per ton or per kg? (or per kWh for that matter)

960kg.  Apparently 4800kWh per pallet which makes the price per kWh pretty good but the fact remains prices have more than doubled since April.  That makes my 7 pallets per year at around £3,500 to provide heat and hot water.  We never have the heating above 18C and only have the heat downstairs, for now.  Plus nearly £2k for electricity.

frugal90

Fuel prices have now fallen, but pellets are still high. In Europe they are less than 300 euros a tonne..I have been using the woodburner and the immersion, plus now it's longer days the solar PV heats water via the immersion. 

Prospects for falling pellet prices or profiteering. 

If they don't fall, I am sticking the oil boiler back in.

Qyburn

The figures given above, in January, make wood pellets a bit more expensive that oil and about the same as mains gas.  What are the prices now?

Also i wonder if there's a difference in efficiency. In other words maybe the poster using seven pallets would actually use less than 33,000kWh if using oil or gas. 

BUFF

Also i wonder if there's a difference in efficiency. In other words maybe the poster using seven pallets would actually use less than 33,000kWh if using oil or gas. 

depends what they have installed. They are capable of getting very close to even the best condensing gas boiler (~97%), however, a biomass boilers doesn't legally have to reach the 92% figure that a new gas boiler does so lower efficiency models are still on sale.