Bioenergy International PS1 2015 19 WITH 14.9 MILLION hectares (ha) of forest and sharing a border with Finland to the west there is abundant raw material and strategic trade opportunities. The company has its own harvesting machinery and truck fleet. – Initially in 2003/2004 we looked at developing design projects for wood pellet plants in Russia but it was still too early for that business. So we decided to look at buil- PELLETS Turning Karelian residues into roubles Founded in 2004, Russian Wood Alliance Ltd (RWA) started out as a company sourcing roundwood for forest industries in the Republic of Karelia and Arkhangelsk region. In just a decade it has grown to run its own harvesting operations as well as a pellet facility in the capital Petrozavodsk. ding a plant of our own here in Petrozavodsk, explained Svetlana Voronova, sales manager, RWA. Research revealed an opportunity to source sawdust and shavings from the same sawmills that were being supplied with logs and it would sustain a 15 000 tonne-per- annum plant. In 2006, RWA acquired a pelleting line that included a Weishaupt gas burner, Swiss Combi drum dryer and CPM pellet press, from a closed plant in Finland. Production started in 2008. Big bag and boat The plant was up and running in 2008 and has been in operation ever since. The raw material, sawdust and clean wood chips, is sourced from numerous sawmills in the region and arrives by truck. The material is stored on site and a wheeled loader is used to fill the receiving bin. The pellets are packed into big bags before going into storage. Most of the production is exported mainly to the Baltic Sea region. Thanks to the proximity of the Finnish-Russian border and twenty-four-hour border crossings most of the volume is delivered by road. – During the summer period, May-October, we can ship from Petrozavodsk Port, and all the year round from St. Petersburg and Vyborg Ports, said Svetlana Voronova pitching delivery by vessel on CIF terms. Text & photo: Alan Sherrard PS1/4714/AS Top-down plant for South Korean producer Whilst South Korea is fast emerging as a market destination for industrial-grade pellets for its power sector the country is also developing domestic pellet production to provide heating fuel for rural households. The target is to reach 1 million tonnes by 2020. The pellet plant is a vertical line. On the ground floor is the automatic pellet bagging and palletizing system. The pellets are bagged into 20 kg bags for delivery to private consumers. SOUTH KOREA HAS A FOREST AREA of just over 6.3 million hectares (ha), almost 64 percent of the nation’s total landmass. Developing forest biomass as an alternative fuel is being seriously considered by Korean governmental agencies. In 2010 the Korean Forest Service (KFS) devised a plan to supply wood-pellet boilers to around 16 percent of some 900 000 rural households that used heating oil. The KFS also launched an initiative to stimulate domestic wood-pellet production with a target of 1 million tonnes by 2020. Located in Yeoju county, Gyeonggi Province, the Yeoju Central Wood Distribution Centre is one of these initiative companies. The Centre belongs to National Forestry Cooperative Federation and was incorporated in 1997 to promote economic forest management by processing wood, especially small-diameter roundwood from thinnings. Vertical pellet line The sawmill processes around 20 000 m3 of roundwood per annum using commercial softwoods such as larch (Larix kaemferi), Korean pine (Pinus koraiensis), and cedar (Chamecyparis botusa). The main products are decking, construction lumber and glulam beams. In 2008 the Centre built a pellet plant adjacent to the sawmill to utilise sawdust and shavings. The pellet factory started production in January 2009 and has been in operation ever since. The plant itself occupies an area of only 395 m2 thanks to a three-storey, vertical production line. On the top floor are two pelletising machines, a Kahl two-tonne-per-hour and a one tonne-hour pelletiser developed by a Korean company. The cooling unit is located on the second floor and an automatic bagging and palletising system is on the ground floor. The whole production system is controlled and monitored by the central control room. Under normal operating conditions only two staff are required to run the pellet plant and perform routine maintence. – Our pellets are of very high quality, so they are mainly supplied to private households. One bag contains 20 kg pellets and we deliver the pellets to the clients, said Dr Ryu Jae-Yun, Production Manager for Yeoju Central Wood Distribution Centre. Text & photo: Xinyi Shen PS1/4717/AS (Right) Svetlana Voronova, sales manager, RWA. with her colleague.
Bioenergy nr 1 - 2015
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