Micro-CHP will change premium pellet market: white paper
March 21, 2017
By FutureMetrics
March 21, 2017 - A recent white paper from FutureMetrics describes how a new product developed by OkoFEN in Upper Austria is poised to dramatically change how heating pellets contribute to the overall market for wood pellets.
Currently, premium heating pellets only produce heat in pellet stoves, boilers, or furnaces. OkoFEN has developed a small combined heat and power (CHP) system that runs on premium wood pellets. This new product, described in detail in the white paper, crosses the boundary between heating pellets and industrial pellets.
In the United States and Canada the systems will be assembled in Maine and sold under the Maine Energy Systems “MESys” brand.
Generating electricity at the micro level with renewable low carbon wood pellets can be part of a distributed power smart grid architecture that can complement small-scale solar, small-scale battery storage, and the growth in the use of electric vehicles.
To illustrate the benefits of producing both heat and power and to use an example that has metrics that are easy to understand, FutureMetrics has produced a dashboard that shows the cost to charge an electric vehicle (EV) using the electricity produced by the pellet-fueled micro-CHP system.
The dashboard calculates the cost to charge any one of 12 currently available electric cars from the power produced by the CHP system. The user can change many of the inputs. The inputs and outputs can be switched between a US version (using imperial units and dollars) and a European version (using metric units and Euros). The dashboard compares the “fuel” cost per mile or kilometer of the EV versus a gasoline or diesel car. The user can also compare the cost per kWh of charging the EV with the micro-CHP versus with electricity from the utility.
Learn more and download the white paper and dashboard at: www.futuremetrics.com
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