Sustainable fuel from local forestry

Estover works with groups of local forestry owners who are looking to make the best use of their low-grade wood.

We offer a new local market, supporting local industry, with a financial return from the energy market instead of the low-grade wood market. This supports traditional sawlog and speciality wood products by ensuring a market for the lower-grade wood. 

We have spent the last two years working with some of the largest forestry owners in the UK to develop a structure that works. 

The first of these agreements was signed in April 2010, and we are delighted that many more forestry owners across England and Scotland have followed since then.

At a glance Many organisations support local wood fuel and CHP plants Estover has long-term supply by offering forestry owners a financial return from energy instead of from the low-grade wood market Our fuel supports good forestry and woodland management CHP is one of the best uses of wood fuel

Wide support from environmental and ecological organisations

Many environmental organisations support local wood fuel:

• Wildlife & Countryside Link supported by 12 organisations including the RSPB, the Wildlife Trusts and the Woodland Trust published a position statement on local wood fuel:“Biomass power stations should be using wood fuel produced in the UK from better management of our forests and woodlands. We must also use the large amounts of unused waste and agricultural by-products the UK produces."

• The Forestry Commission has a page on the benefits of wood fuel on their page "Burning Wood is Good".

• The RSPB reported this year: “... support should be redirected towards small-scale local supply of feedstocks, ensuring efficiency is maximised through heat capture."

• WWF outlined the potential benefits of biomass "The environmental advantages of biomass production include: Substituting fossil fuel use with a CO2-neutral alternative, reducing emissions of other atmospheric pollutants such as sulphur, protecting soil and watersheds, increasing or maintaining biodiversity, and reducing fire risk in forestry. These benefits provide a powerful argument for accelerating the introduction of biomass energy in virtually all industrialized countries." (WWF - A Biomass Blueprint)

• The Woodland Trust has lent their support to the type of fuel Estover will use: "Sensitively harvested, locally produced woodfuel can help avoid fossil fuel emissions and provide habitat for wildlife. We also think that demand for woodfuel could be one of the drivers in encouraging new native woodland planting, which would bring with it a whole host of other benefits from improving air and water quality, locking up carbon and helping woodland wildlife adapt to climate change.”

• The UK Environment Agency found substantial carbon savings from UK-sourced wood fuel “Electricity produced from wood chips and roundwood from sustainably managed forests in the UK offer substantial savings (over 90 per cent) compared to EU average electricity generation. .... in the case of the UK coniferous forest example, if wood is supplied as wood chips or roundwood, the increase in carbon stocks is enough to more than offset the GHG emissions associated with all other stages (cultivation, processing, transport and generation) and so savings are over 100 per cent.” 

• AEA produced a report for the UK government's Department for Energy & Climate Change showing how CHP is a better use of fuel than heat-only or electricity-only: "... carbon saving increases with increased heat extraction and is maximised at maximum cogeneration mode. Above about 27.5% heat efficiency, the CHP displaces more CO2 from fossil fuel boilers and power stations than a biomass boiler for the same fuel input." (p25)

• The United Nations Forestry Department pointed towards CHP being a good use of wood fuel "There is enormous variability in the efficiency of use of wood energy, ranging from open fireplaces with very low efficiency or electricity generation without heat recovery, to modern district heating or CHP installations with high combustion efficiency and low energy losses at all stages. It is therefore of great importance that wood for energy should be used only in an efficient and appropriate way. In practice, this usually means district heating or CHP in efficient modern installations. Often the most energy efficient installations are at a rather larger scale than today’s typical wood burning installations (e.g. for individual houses), which implies that investment in wood burning installations is necessary."

• Other users of wood also support the type of plant we are building. The Confederation of Forest Industries (CONFOR) said “Local biomass energy can provide opportunities for new and existing businesses in the sector and helps to make forest management more financially viable - bringing more wood to market.”

There is also a biomass campaign page here with more information - www.backbiomass.co.uk. 

So, what is sustainable wood fuel?

We are signing agreements with local forestry owners to guarantee a reliable and plentiful supply of fuel from within 50 miles. All fuel will be from sustainable sources licensed by the Forestry Commission and which meet the internationally recognised UK Forestry Standard (UKFS). 

We will use low-grade wood - our aim is to use as much wood fuel from the parts of the tree that have little or no use to other potential users as possible. Unlike some biomass plants we burn wood chip not pellets. Pellets use much more energy to produce and increase carbon emissions compared to chip.

• Sustainable management only extracts a small amount of the wood from a forest each year, say 2%. For a forest of 20,000 acres, this would be a cube of wood 40m across, of which we would use a small proportion.

• For example, during the harvesting process the poorer quality trees are removed, leaving behind trees with potential to become excellent timber. This process actually causes the remaining 98% of the forest to grow faster, which in turn locks up more carbon than if the trees had been left alone.

• We leave some dead wood to encourage birds and insects, in line with appropriate standards, but even so we dramatically reduce emissions of methane – a much worse “greenhouse gas” than carbon dioxide.

• This also improves the health of the forest and encourages rare species such as dormice, nightjars, and butterflies.

The diagram below outlines the carbon cycle - click the image for a larger version in a new window.