- Location
- Netherlands
Hi all,
I come from the Netherlands and check this forum regularly. I was looking for some advice of using biomass to dry woodchips and possibly grain or barley when we have a wet summer. Last year summer was quite cold and wet so it wasn't easy to harvest dry...
This winter we move to my grandparents farm and I want to heat the house and workshop with biomass. I have a small sawmill so I have quite some slabs to chip. I also have a woodchipper myself so I have easy acces to chips, and hopefully even more in future. With the rising gas prices it looks interesting to heat as much as possible with my own woodchips.
So I plan to make a kind of silo/shed with a dryfloor to dry mostly woodchips, and eventual some grain in summer. For the chips it would be okay to dry 50 m3 in a time, what kind of boiler should I look at? Should 120 kW be enough, or do I need 150 kw or more? And how many ventilators will I need for grain or for woodchips? Woodchips contain much more water so I can imagine that drying woodchips determines the capacity of the system.
On the internet I found a kind of solar system, they use solar panels to heat up air, what they use for ventilating woodchips etc. (www.cona.at) It looks interesting, but don't know or it is easy to combine with a boiler for wintertime when there is hardly any sun. Are there more systems like theirs?
Many thanks in advance!
I come from the Netherlands and check this forum regularly. I was looking for some advice of using biomass to dry woodchips and possibly grain or barley when we have a wet summer. Last year summer was quite cold and wet so it wasn't easy to harvest dry...
This winter we move to my grandparents farm and I want to heat the house and workshop with biomass. I have a small sawmill so I have quite some slabs to chip. I also have a woodchipper myself so I have easy acces to chips, and hopefully even more in future. With the rising gas prices it looks interesting to heat as much as possible with my own woodchips.
So I plan to make a kind of silo/shed with a dryfloor to dry mostly woodchips, and eventual some grain in summer. For the chips it would be okay to dry 50 m3 in a time, what kind of boiler should I look at? Should 120 kW be enough, or do I need 150 kw or more? And how many ventilators will I need for grain or for woodchips? Woodchips contain much more water so I can imagine that drying woodchips determines the capacity of the system.
On the internet I found a kind of solar system, they use solar panels to heat up air, what they use for ventilating woodchips etc. (www.cona.at) It looks interesting, but don't know or it is easy to combine with a boiler for wintertime when there is hardly any sun. Are there more systems like theirs?
Many thanks in advance!