Many industry’s have moved their production into old farm buildings. After minimal renovations they are faced with a question how to heat these large production areas and demanding warehouses.
Together with our partner Bioenergia Terenov we have installed a 1 MW pellet burner in front of the steam boiler in Portugal. The system helps the customer to disinfect wood bark for mulch production three times cheaper than before, saving each day over 300€. To ensure constant work of the factory, the burner must be at continious work.
The biggest difference of running a pellet burner with steam boiler instead of hot water boiler, is that it has to run according to the pressure in the boiler and not by temperature. Power levels change according to a prediction created by analyzing the pressure data, determining the pressure change and the rate of the change.
Constant steam pressure is vital to run the production without stops. The boiler with PV1000a burner is capable to produce 1500 kg of steam per hour. Most of the time the output of the system is about 700-800kg of steam per hour with the pressure 6 bar.
Like food industries in general, milk products have also high sanitary and quality requirements, it is important to ensure good shelf life and to destroy disease causing microorganisms. The existence of reliable and flexible heat source which can keep the system running without stops, is unavoidable.
Canada produces 71% of the world’s pure maple syrup with 91% originating from within Quebec. The syrup is extracted by drilling holes into the maple trees to collect the exuded sap which is then heated to remove the excess water. The challenging part is that the sap runs only when the night is below 0⁰C degrees and the day is above 0⁰C degrees. It means that the system must be up and running at all times to be able to react to the output of sap.
Evaporators are used to get the right syrup consistency. This however needs a lot of energy and that is where our burners can help to keep the costs down. Mostly our 1 MW burners are used in maple syrup evaporators.
In this kind of systems no temperature based control is used because of continuous production. During the process, syrup that´s ready is removed and new sap is added. Our burner is running on full power to hold the mixture near the boiling temperature. The whole process has full time human supervision. Traditions and skills handed down from previous generations are used to create a high quality product.
Greenhouse heating can be tricky as the room is generally open and the walls have little to no insulation. When it’s not sunny outside or temperature drops below 15°C, extra heating is required.
Different municipals are looking for more cost efficient ways to heat their buildings. These buildings are usually kindergartens, parish councils and other social buildings that are under local municipals responsibility. Oil was quite cheap during soviet times and oil boiler houses were very popular. It means that still a large number of municipalities heat with oil because they have the equipment. Every year more and more municipalities invest in renovation of the boiler house and change to pellets heating.
While being a renewable source of energy, pellet prices are also lower than heating oil. Pellet boiler houses are automated and don’t require space-taking equipment like woodchip systems.
Alavere boiler house has Viessmann Vitoplex 200 with nominal power of 400kW. The boiler is powered by PV350a burner. The length of the heating pipeline runs for about 1 km between the buildings – so it is not a long grid. The burner regulates its power levels automatically according to the usage of hot water in the system. This varies the most during peak hours when people wake up in the morning and the outside temperature is usually the coldest.
There is a 14 cubic meter silo for pellets. It is refilled by a pellet truck with a pneumatic filling system.