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Many building owners in Ireland use fossil heating fuels, such as oil or propane, for space heating.
These fuels are often expensive and unstable in pricing. In addition, they threaten the global climate and sustainability of communities. Proven alternatives to fossil heating fuels exist and are already in use in Ireland. Biomass fuels are a local, renewable resource for providing reliable heat.
Wood pellets are a common type of biomass. Biomass is any biological material that can be used as fuel—including grass, corn, wood, and biogas as well as other forestry and agricultural residues.
Wood pellets are compressed by-products from the forest products industry, often woodchips and sawdust. They are a locally available and a cost-effective heating fuel with several advantages over other types of biomass.
Wood pellets are a condensed uniformly sized form of biomass energy, making them easier to store and use than many other biomass fuels. Pellet heating technology is also quite simple, minimizing operation and maintenance requirements. These heating systems can be easy to plan for and install and can save a building owner thousands of euro in energy costs over time while providing significant local economic and environmental benefits.
However, the recurring problem with wood pellet boiler and distributions systems is that most homes in Ireland are too small to extract the economic value from using them. A large individual house in excess of 300sqm would justify the installation of a wood pellet system. The Irish Government had for a period a grant-aid system going that made them economical in smaller homes but this no longer available. That said, when the grants were in place the take up was strong and now thousands of Irish homes have systems installed
Using biomass fuels helps mitigate such environmental issues as acid rain and global climate change. Perhaps the greatest advantage of biomass fuels, however, is that they cost on average 25-50 percent less than fossil heating fuels and are more stable in pricing.
It is unlikely that any future carbon or energy taxes will increase the cost of biomass fuels and are more likely to raise the cost of heating with fossil fuels. The technology is becoming well established in the European market and spreading now to the heating industry in Ireland and the choice to heat with biomass fuels can be as simple as choosing a traditional fossil fuel heating system.
In addition, wood pellets:
• are convenient and easy to use, and can be bulk stored in less space than other biomass fuels
• have a high energy content, and the technology is highly efficient compared to other biomass fuels • are a clean-burning renewable fuel source
• are produced from such waste materials as forestry residues and sawdust
• are price stable compared to fossil fuels
Wood pellets are available for residential use in 20-kilo bags from feed stores, nurseries, and other supply outlets.
Increasingly, heating with wood pellets is becoming common on larger scales—in municipal or federal buildings, educational facilities, housing complexes, office buildings, and other businesses. The greater heating requirements of these larger buildings differ from those of residential settings, thus requiring different technology (boilers rather than stoves) and fuel supply infrastructure (bulk wood pellet supply rather than bags).
The best candidates in the industrial, commercial and municipal buildings sector for wood pellet boilers are buildings between 1,000 and 5,000 square metres that use heating oil, propane, or electricity to produce space heat and/or hot water. Natural gas is generally a less expensive fossil fuel for space heat, and wood pellet prices are not always competitive. When natural gas prices are significantly higher than the national average price, wood pellets may be the better alternative. Wood pellet heating systems are also a viable option for new construction in the home sector provided the house is large.
The wood pellet industry in Ireland is expanding all the time and the case for installation is worthy of examination by anyone considering converting or building a new home.
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