Go Greener with KMEC Biomass Pellet Mill & Pellet Plant

Challenges of Pellet Development

1.Enlarging the feedstock base for wood pellets

As mentioned above, the vast majority of pellet plants, especially those created in the early days of the industry still rely on the use of sawmill residues as feedstock; however, in several countries the demand for wood pellets already outstripped the supply of residues such as saw dust and shavings. Pellet producers have already started to source additional and alternative sorts of woody feedstock. These include wood chips from saw mills, forest industrial round wood, forest residues, bark, used wood and wood produced from short rotation forestry plantations for the production of either residential grade or industrial grade pellets. Besides feedstock shortage there is also another increasingly important reason for pellet mill operators to diversify their feedstock base. Large-scale pellet consumers such as European or North American power plants are increasingly looking for medium and long term supply agreements with well‐defined volumes and prices that mirror their domestic feed in tariffs. This growing need for stability on the feedstock side in both price and volume conflicts with the volatile supply situation of the residue stream of the saw milling industry. In several cases, larger pellet manufacturers and even some energy producers are moving upstream along their supply chain, in an effort to secure their feedstock base on a long term basis through either long term forest concessions or long term supply agreements with forest owners.
 
Exploiting the basin of agricultural feedstock with agro pellets Next to woody biomass as feedstock for the pellet production alternative resources are becoming more prominent. Agricultural residues such as straw, hay and husks as well as energy crops like miscanthus are the most popular raw materials for the agro pellets production today. Countries with significant developments and activities in this area so far are Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. Further interesting and significant agro pellet markets with a still unexploited potential are Hungary, France and Germany, as well as the Netherlands and sand Belgium. Few trading streams can be noticed among countries,in particular between bordering regions. A significant stream can be noticed between Ukraine and Poland. The export of sunflower husks from Ukraine to Poland amounted to approximately 150,000 tons in 2009. Agro pellets are currently mainly used for co‐firing in coal power plants, while small‐scale applications for heating systems are not yet fully developed, mainly due to technical problems during combustion and emissions. In this regard, initiatives for the general standardisation of the quality of agro pellets are being implemented, as exemplified by the new European multipart-standard EN 14961 defining quality specifications for solid biofuels, which specifies five quality classes for non‐woody pellets for non-industrial use.

Pellets

Get to know the Processing of pelletization
 
2.Refining the quality of pellets: the promise of torrefaction
The development of chemical and thermal preconditioning technologies in addition to densification will be essential to allow a broader feedstock portfolio for the production of pellets. Among these,torrefaction presents several advantages along the biomass to pellet value chain. Virtually all biomass resources are suitable for torrefaction, and the physical and chemical properties of both woody and herbaceous biomass significantly improve after this treatment. Torrefied biomass becomes hydrophobic and can therefore be stored in the open air and is easier to dry. The process also increases the energy density of biomass in respect to its overall weight; this can drastically reduce logistical costs. The use of torrefied biomass will substantially increase the potential share of co‐firing in standard coal power plants (up to 100% in comparison to about 10% based on wood pellets) and will allow to co‐feed woody biomass in industrial sized coal gasifiers.
 
There are a number of initiatives at different development stages currently working on such torrefaction technologies, mainly based in Europe or North America. The most promising technological approaches are based on continuous processes such as vertical moving bed reactors, screw reactors,drum reactors or fluidized bed reactors. A number of demonstration plants will be commissioned by the end of 2012.The efforts already being carried out by world scale companies will most certainly lead to commercially available torrefaction technologies in the near future.

Biomass Pellet Mill

Link to the drying system offered by Kingman
 
3.Adapting logistics and transportation infrastructures
Trade in bio-products is now experiencing an explosive growth, both in volumes, sources and destinations. The last years have seen developments of new pellet plants, with major capacity building
in Canada, the US South East, mostly for export, and also Australia and New Zealand, with the prospect of many more, creating new trade routes to Europe. To accommodate the quickly growing pellet markets, infrastructure requirements for existing major suppliers such as BC and the US South will chiefly be reduction of bottlenecks and other simple capacity increases. Large investments will be required to achieve these logistic and infrastructure improvements. Furthermore, many regions rich in biomass resources do not have the financial capability of developing the resource. In this regard, a new Bio-trade Equity Fund could be created to fill the investment gap, enabling development in new biomass supplies, reducing risk by investing in the whole supply chain and securing fibre supply contracts, efficient ground transport, large conversion plants, efficient ports and safe off‐take agreements.

4.Ensuring sustainability along the value chain
Ensuring sustainable production, trade and use of wood pellets has become an essential issue for the further development of the market, in particular for the industrial use of pellets. In recent times concerns have been expressed that an expansion of international trade of biomass and increasing imports from third countries may lead to the unsustainable production of solid biomass. As a consequence, the main importing countries of biomass have started or are planning to develop theirown national sustainability requirements, and recommendations on sustainability requirements for voluntary initiatives were issued by the European Commission. At the same time industrial and business-to-business schemes are being developed. This may lead to voluntary or mandatory certification schemes,which are not necessarily complementary or compatible to each other, so that a uniform and common approach is necessary to harmonize sustainability schemes for solid biomass.
 
Utilities in the electricity and heating sector as well as the national governments from biomass importing countries are calling for a common sustainability scheme for solid biomass in order to limit intra‐EU cross‐border barriers in setting up bioenergy projects and to create a level-playing field for the whole sector. Transforming wood pellets into a global commodity The wood pellets market is not yet a commodity market as it is not transparent and carries large risks,the most important being the supply of biomass feedstock. Most bioenergy projects have low technology risk, they use proven processes and equipment and have well-defined supply chains.

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Transportation risk can be significant, as evidenced by the volatility in maritime shipping prices during 2006-2009. Such risk can be mitigated by long term shipping contracts, or dedicated specialized ships. Regulatory risk is a major factor as economics of bioenergy are supported by government incentives and renewable portfolio standards. In order to reduce such risks a steering committee comprising the seven largest European wood pellets consumers named “Initiative Wood Pellet Buyers” is working towards the standardization of the pellet market focusing on important aspects such as the legal framework, contractual and financial measures to increase market liquidity and price stability, technical specifications, sampling standards and common sustainability requirements.
 
An important step forward towards the transformation of wood pellets into a global commodity is represented by the world’s first biomass exchange that was launched in November 2011 by APX-ENDEX,a provider of power and gas exchange services, in partnership with the Port of Rotterdam. The new exchange will allow market participants to trade standard contracts in a transparent environment. Furthermore the new biomass exchange will also help to set common market standards for pellets; aseries of product quality requirements for the traded goods are indeed specified. Besides quality parameters an important aspect is represented by the mandatory sustainability requirement for biomass: in order to be included in the exchange system, the delivered pellet lots will have to be accompanied with the necessary documents to prove that the product is in compliance with the guidelines as described in a range of three voluntary sustainability schemes.

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If you have many waste thing like grass, sawdust, wood log or any other organic materials, you don’t know how to deal with it or just through them away directly before. But it still needs to pay for money and energy for that process. Also it is big waster for materials. Then how about make pellet by yourself with a pellet mill?