How Does a Biomass Boiler Work?

If you have been wondering what the word biomass means, wonder no more. Biomass refers to any energy source that is biodegradable. Renewable. It's really quite simple because a common wood burning fireplace is in fact a biomass heater because it burns logs. Even so, the hottest topics today are more elaborate biomass schemes that recycle waste products.

So a biomass boiler is a boiler that is powered by some type of renewable fuel. It can be directly burned as with, say logs, wood pellets, or wood chips. Or the fuels can be a gas that had been produced by decaying biomass that releases methane. This one in particular is big and getting bigger every day.

So much of what we discard, or is discarded as waste during the production of many of the consumer products that line store shelves can be converted into methane. In fact one of the most recent success stories in Northern California is an onion processing plant that now saves over $100,000 per year on its power by converting organic material created during onion processing to methane.

Then there are landfills all over the US, Canada, the UK and Europe that have gone into the business of electricity production with small generating stations that are powered by methane that's piped out of the ground. Still one more popular source of biomass for urban based biomass enthusiasts, is old used cooking oil that they can collect from fast food restaurants.

Now the big difference here between petroleum based oil that is pumped out of the ground, and cooking oil that is pumped out of a used oil tank behind a burger joint, is the burger joint oil is "renewable". It's organic and was processed out of plant matter, so it is renewable and it has so much potential for use, including powering an automobile.

But getting back to the topic of biomass boilers, what many people have found, is that the simpler the configuration the better. Sure it would be nice to have some type of conversion system that produces and pipes methane into your home or business, but it's the complexity of these conversion and storage systems that put them out of reach for domestic use as a whole.

Instead what most people decide on after doing their research into biomass boilers for the home or small commercial enterprise is done, is either a wood pellet powered system or something basic that's stocked by cord-wood. Keep in mind that with managed use, and proper tank insulation, under normal conditions this type of system is quite adequate.

You see the primary inhibiting factor that you face as you decide on which direction to take with a biomass boiler system is cost. Not just in the initial installation, but also in the ongoing maintenance as well as the fuel. That is unless you have a cheap reliable source which can make the prospect just that more attractive.

Myriad are a supplier of Biomass Boiler and wood chip heating systems in the UK.