You may not be aware of it, but woodfuel boilers are coming to a building near you. All across the West of England these systems are being installed in order to cut carbon emissions and save on heating costs.

Public sector biomass energy initiatives
The local authorities in the region are all actively looking to install biomass boilers in suitable buildings on their estates, such as schools and leisure centres.

Already, Bristol City Council has installed 15 boilers at schools and has 10 projects planned for installation in 2010-11. Similarly, South Gloucestershire Council has seven wood fuel boilers installed across its estate (three are fuelled by wood pellets).

Established & growing demand
In total there is 9.1 megawatts (MW) of biomass heating installed across the former county of Avon. Collectively these projects require over 4,000 tonnes of wood fuel per year. A further 3.7 MW are in planning or have had feasibility studies completed, with a requirement of more than 2,700 tonnes of wood fuel per year.

Current & future capacity
The local wood fuel resource should be ample to meet the immediate and future demand for at least the next five to ten years. As a very rough guide there is around 25,000 tonnes of timber from local woodlands, tree surgery and clean waste wood available to fuel boilers in the West of England.

However, most of this capacity is in under-managed woodlands which until now have been uneconomic for timber extraction and conversion to wood fuel. With increased take-up of wood fuel boilers - and incentives such as the Renewable Heat Incentive - we are likely to see much development of this area of energy resourcing over the next few years.