Fuel supply

The long term consistent supply of biomass as a fuel is critical for owners of heat plant. The biomass suitable as a fuel can come in many forms and from many sources. However heat plant are designed for specific fuels so understanding the future fuel streams and their potential availability for specific plant is very important. Wood is the biggest source of biomass available to be used as fuel. However counting the trees planted does not tell you how much biomass may be available as fuel. Trees are primarily grown for export as logs or processing into timber products. The fuel is likley to come from the 15-18% of the tree which is left behind as harvest or processing residues. The best fuel coming from process residues.

Harvest or processing wood residues often need to be processed into being a suitable fuel. This may entail chipping, drying and screening into specified grades for sale and delivery as fuel.

In addition to wood there are other sources of biomass suitable for processing into being a specified fuel. This may come from agricultural or urban activities such as straw stover or arborist chip.