CO2 neutral wood gas CHP runs all year round
The wood gas CHP has an annual runtime of approximately 8,530 hours and supplies heat to a wellness hotel, private residences, a school, a kindergarten and a fire station in Spinges. A separate wood chip heating system is available to meet peak demand and during maintenance work.
The electricity generated is fed into the public grid, with 17% deducted for internal use.
Hotel uses its own wood to generate energy with wood gas CHP
40 hectares of our own forest land serve as fuel for the wood gas CHP and the wood chip heating system. Our own small chipper converts the logs into perfect wood chips for powering the wood gasifier. Neither fine nor long particles need to be sifted out of the finished fuel. A double-pot dryer converts the still-moist wood chips into dry fuel.
Key data on wood chip drying
- Storage hall for buffering larger quantities of wet and dry wood chips: unlimited
- Double pot drying (also storage bunker for dry wood chips): 2 x 50 m³
- The wood gasifier is supplied with wood chips directly from the double pot drying.
Interview with wood gas CHP operator Hansjörg Senoner
Hello Hansjörg, your wood gas CHP runs over 8,500 hours a year. How do you produce your fuel for this?
In South Tyrol, it's more difficult to operate a timber industry; usually, knotless logs are lifted from the forest using chains. Therefore, there are hardly any residual wood or impurities in the logs.
How do you prepare the logs for the wood gas CHP plant?
I usually split the logs myself for my own chipper. The logs can be a maximum of 40 cm in diameter. If I have a lot of wood or don't have time for woodworking, I hire an external chipper. This allows me to chip even larger logs, eliminating the need for splitting. Generally speaking, making my own wood chips is a hobby of mine.
How do you deal with fine or long particles in the wood chips?
In general, chipping of logs produces hardly any fines or oversized particles. However, fines are removed using a fines screen before feeding and fed into the wood chip heating system via a separate bunker.
Hansjörg, how much work do you spend on generating electricity and heat in total?
We have been operating our wood gas CHP plant since 2013. I can confirm that plant maintenance takes between 0 and 3 hours per week. The wood gasifier enables us to meet our energy needs in a climate-friendly way using our own raw material – which is fantastic!