Converting a biomass boiler????????

johnspeehs

Member
Location
Co Antrim
Ok,,
Do any of you renewable guys know is it possible to convert a wood pellet boiler to burn any other type of fuel?. Reason im asking is its looking more and more likely that they will either close completely or severely cut the tariff of the RHI scheme here and burning pellets will no longer be viable to heat chicken houses.
 

johnspeehs

Member
Location
Co Antrim
Yes probably john but i just hate the thought of 2 nearly new 199kw boilers sitting idol after spending a fair few 10's of thousands of £££££ on them, Im actually in the tiered scheme but they are just going to wipe us all out. I was hoping i could convert them to burn coal :sneaky::sneaky: and go back to fossil fuel, kind of a 2 fingers up to them for making such a horrendous cock up of our scheme.
 

Still Farming

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
South Wales UK
Yes probably john but i just hate the thought of 2 nearly new 199kw boilers sitting idol after spending a fair few 10's of thousands of £££££ on them, Im actually in the tiered scheme but they are just going to wipe us all out. I was hoping i could convert them to burn coal :sneaky::sneaky: and go back to fossil fuel, kind of a 2 fingers up to them for making such a horrendous cock up of our scheme.
What ever rhi tariff your signed up on surely that is it for remaining scheme years.
If other fuel maybe forfit rhi.
But if replacment boiler to burn different size material maybe rhi can be kept?
Worth checking , or way to source cheaper wood pellets from else where or abroad maybe?
 

johnspeehs

Member
Location
Co Antrim
@Still Farming
If only it were that easy, if you have a spare hr check out the NI RHI scheme debacle. I'm not getting into the rights and wrongs of it now but basically the people who set up the scheme here made a total rubbish of it and now want to shaft the people who joined and use the scheme in good faith. Basically the department here have said that all the contracts we entered into were not really contracts and have just ran a pen through them even though our first minister wrote a letter to all the banks here saying that they guaranteed the tariffs for the next 20 yrs. If you cant even trust your own government to stick by contracts who can you trust.
 

Exfarmer

Member
Location
Bury St Edmunds
I would have thought they will stand by the genuine RHI claimants, such as yourselves. Those who are heating empty sheds are a different matter.
However if they do stop payments I would have thought the obvious fuel would be the poultry litter. I suspect it would not be expensive to buy a machine to convert it to pellets so it would be a seamless transition. There are two power stations running in my area on poultry litter
 

johnspeehs

Member
Location
Co Antrim
I would have thought they will stand by the genuine RHI claimants, such as yourselves. Those who are heating empty sheds are a different matter.
However if they do stop payments I would have thought the obvious fuel would be the poultry litter. I suspect it would not be expensive to buy a machine to convert it to pellets so it would be a seamless transition. There are two power stations running in my area on poultry litter

You would think that wouldn't you but no, its likely to be a pencil through the whole scheme. The boiler owners are getting a lot of support from businesses who aren't even in the scheme as they say its not just an RHI problem but a contracts problem, if your own government can just tear up an RHI contract because they made a pigs ear of it whats to stop them doing it for any scheme or any other government support.
Your absolutely right though, anyone found abusing the scheme should be thrown out and any money paid to them recovered.
 

Raja

Member
Livestock Farmer
Ok,,
Do any of you renewable guys know is it possible to convert a wood pellet boiler to burn any other type of fuel?. Reason im asking is its looking more and more likely that they will either close completely or severely cut the tariff of the RHI scheme here and burning pellets will no longer be viable to heat chicken houses.
It can be converted into wood chip burner, which is a lot cheaper option.
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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