Drying Firewood when RHI payments stop.

[ash_smith123]

 

20 hours ago, Woodwanter said:

One of the directorsof a consultant company who helps advise ofgem.

 

the RHI was never designed to dry fuel, it was supposed to be to replace fossil fuels. If you wanted to set up a business log drying you should have in 2013 when they were paying 9p/kWh. 

 

I think you have missed the boat, take advice before you commit, not sure on the rules in Ireland but the lack if Tier 1 out there has cocked the job up for many.

 

look at using solar kilns as a solution if you have the demand for firewood

I did, one system is on 8.9p and the other 6.9p.

so from reading that it is only new applications that are effected?! 

Edited February 1, 2018 by ash_smith123

[FJMatt]

The majority of these change will apply to new and to existing RHI-supported facilities, which" ""add"" "capacity on or after the date the reforms come into effect.

 

Looks like it's just new for now, but you won't be able to add on to existing unit 

 

 

[Woodwanter]

1 hour ago, ash_smith123 said:

 

I did, one system is on 8.9p and the other 6.9p.

so from reading that it is only new applications that are effected?! 

No one can be sure. From what i have been advised, new set ups will be shut down, existing may be depending on what % of your total Tier 1 goes towards fuel drying

26 minutes ago, FJMatt said:

The majority of these change will apply to new and to existing RHI-supported facilities, which" ""add"" "capacity on or after the date the reforms come into effect.

 

Looks like it's just new for now, but you won't be able to add on to existing unit 

 

 

 

Quite, they have and can moved the goal posts. Any business plans for fuel drying need to stack up without the RHI in my opinion from now on.

 

would it be viable to use fossil fuels to take over instead?

[SbTVF]

If they came at us to stop drying I would try and get a heat meter fitted on the pipe loop to the kiln so that could be deducted from total amount. Wether ofgem could be trusted to have that much common sense is another matter!

[donnk]

On 26/01/2018 at 09:19, FJMatt said:

Here's fan details Steve 

That fan looks very very ineffecient in terms of electric used.

 

I dont know anything about your setup, but if these fans are the main draw of power and therefore running costs I would be looking to make them much more efficient. How much would say 10-30% saving in annual electric bill be worth ?

 

First I'd get a company in to look at Power Factor Correction, this kit would be an immediate saving needing no changes to your plant as its all done on the incoming electric. 

 

Depending on the potential savings I'd look at swopping out those fans for much more power efficient ones, if the are on 24x7x365 you could see some massive savings.

 

http://www.kwsaving.co.uk/Business/pfc/pfc-simple.htm

https://www.aircontrolindustries.com/products/industrial-fans/axial-fans/

 

[donnk]

On 28/01/2018 at 14:40, difflock said:

Whether particularly pertinent to this thread or not;

I ran a so-called "Solarbayer" gasifying logwood burner for about 10 years, & I hasten to add, NOT under the RHI scheme.

I now reverted to  heating with kero, a 500 gal fill (2250 litres to younguns) has lasted about 18 months, courtsey of self installed underfloor heating, 15 deg Celsius in the hall stairs and landing, and a woodburning Morso in the Garden room, which easily sustains 25 deg centigrade.

Woodburning only makes sense, either on the Micro scale=woodburner in the room, or the Macro scale, but WITHOUT subsidies.

marcusthehat

Ground source heat pump. waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay cheaper.

[Woodworks]

1 hour ago, donnk said:

Ground source heat pump. waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay cheaper.

Ground source is no good for the high temperatures required in a kiln. Cant immediately find a graph for a GSHP pump but here is one for an ASHP and it shows how the efficiency of heat pumps drops off with higher flow temperatures. Think kilns need to be heated to 70C so the flow temperature would need to be hotter still. As the graph shows even at a flow of 60C the COP has dropped down to less than 2 which means you are getting just 2kWh of heat for every 1kWh of electrical input. Once up to say 80C I would imagine it would be using more than it's producing.

 

We have a GSHP at home and it does not run with a flow temperature higher than 30C for the above reasoning.

Edited February 2, 2018 by Woodworks

[difflock]

1 hour ago, donnk said:

Ground source heat pump. waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay cheaper.

I seriously, seriously considered a GSHP installation, but reluctantly decided, that since I had "free" timber to burn, a gasifying boiler was the answer.

I had the perfect location and ground conditions for the slinky coils too.

(where, I now intend to construct my/our big pond/small lake)

And, the heating load was/is mostly underfloor.

Though with the contribution made by our wood stoves to the total heating load, and the wish for hot tap water, oil just might be a perfectly good fit.

Also, to get the grant, I would have been unable to self-install, AND be limited to only using "approved" installers=snake oil salesmen, therefore the quality of the install would most probably have been questionable.

regards

marcus

[SbTVF]

That fan looks very very ineffecient in terms of electric used.

 

I dont know anything about your setup, but if these fans are the main draw of power and therefore running costs I would be looking to make them much more efficient. How much would say 10-30% saving in annual electric bill be worth ?

 

First I'd get a company in to look at Power Factor Correction, this kit would be an immediate saving needing no changes to your plant as its all done on the incoming electric. 

 

Depending on the potential savings I'd look at swopping out those fans for much more power efficient ones, if the are on 24x7x365 you could see some massive savings.

 

http://www.kwsaving.co.uk/Business/pfc/pfc-simple.htm

https://www.aircontrolindustries.com/products/industrial-fans/axial-fans/

 

 

 

Thanks for the information I’ll look into it. Any way to save power is worth trying!

 

Just for those of us who are less well informed, how can you tell it’s inefficient from the label? What on there is telling you about its efficacy?

[Chalgravesteve]

16 minutes ago, SbTVF said:

 

 

Thanks for the information I’ll look into it. Any way to save power is worth trying!

 

Just for those of us who are less well informed, how can you tell it’s inefficient from the label? What on there is telling you about its efficacy?

I'd be interested in that info as well, I'll get a picture of my 4 fans when I can get at them!

 

I've got a 270Kw boiler, system paid for itself over three years. If the RHI stopped I'd still be kiln drying the firewood as the income from the firewood sales is more than double the RHI income now and increasing each year. We keep tinkering with it to find out what gives us the fastest drying time, so for example, originally, the fans ran until the accumulator tank dropped to 30 degrees from its maximum of 80 which is where the boiler fans shut off. By raising the low cut off to 40 the drying fans run for a shorter time but the kiln temperature is always higher. Warm air holds more moisture so the drying has got quicker despite the running time being less. The only bit of drying time we lose though, is the fans going between 39 degrees and 30 degrees in the accumulator tank, which clearly wasn't having any great impact on the drying in the kiln itself. My fans do run 24/7 during the week though usually, from one loading of the boiler in the morning. Very occasionally, we might top the boiler up but thats rare really.