Aberdeenshire growing as centre of wood biomass power

Summary of Report

Source:Newenergyfocus

Aberdeenshire looks set to have four wood fuel production plants up and running within a year, costing up to £1 million each.

The Aberdeenshire area is becoming something of a wood biomass hotspot thanks to the large availability of raw material from the local forest products industry, combined with a lack of alternative outlets for sawmill by-products in Northeast Scotland.

Local demand for woodchip is being driven by companies like Grampian Heat and Power, which is reporting a huge amount of interest in its wood pellet boiler systems.

A new wood pellet production plant is set to come online this autumn at Puffin Pellets, the company founded by local businessmen Bryan Harper and former Inverurie paper mill managing director Thomas Tait OBE. The company is set to manufacture 25,000 tonnes of wood pellets a year from September, enough to provide biomass fuel for more than 5,000 homes.

And, Treelogic Wood Energy Ltd has also been formed, at Dalfling Farm in Blairdaff, near Inverurie, to supply the fledging wood chip market in north east Scotland.

It will be using feedstocks from the farm woodlands and local forestry operations carried out by sister company Treelogic UK Ltd. Wood fuel for the Dalfling Farm heating plant is chipped and dried on the farm.

First minister

Inverurie and Aberdeenshire are becoming centres of wood biomass energy production
The farm itself is now benefiting from biomass heat, with a new system opened by Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond earlier this year. It consists of a 55kW Froeling automated self-feeding wood chip boiler, supplied by Highland Wood Energy based in Fort William, and heating mains supplied by Grampian Heat and Power.

The facility heats four commercial and four residential properties on the farm, using around 70 tonnes of wood chips each year. The system replaced electric space heating systems, saving around 100 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

On opening the facility, Mr Alex Salmond, said:

September 13, 2008