Iceland 4T/H Wood Pellet Line

In fact, during 2015, the customer had established a wood pellet machinery line project with a wood pellet plant supplier, but the wood pellet equipment frequently failed during production, resulting in interruption of production and continuous maintenance. So the customer decided to completely transform this wood sawdust pellet plant machines.

So the customer found us directly through the e-commerce channel. After fully understanding the customer's needs, we determined the 4t/h wood pellet manufacuring plant solution for the customer in a very short time. The 4 tons per hour new wood biomass pellet plant design saved at least 100,000USD compared with the previous wood pellet production line price, and the wood pellet production line construction period was at least half a month earlier.

Main construction content

The client company is a modern enterprise integrating R&D, production and sales of biomass fuels. The wood pellet line in Iceland project covers an area of ​​2,229 square meters, including existing office space, finished product warehouse and open space.

This project built a new production workshop of 2,000 square meters on the west side of the factory area, with an investment of US$370,000. After the project is completed, it can produce 10,000 tons of biomass pellet fuel annually.

The main engineering components of this project are shown in the table below:

Project product plan

Main performance indicators of products

Main production equipment

The main wood pellet processing equipment used in this wood pellet line in Iceland project are shown in the table below:project include the following:

Raw and auxiliary materials and their usage

Production process of wood pellet line in Iceland

• Logs: The bark and wood of the wood head are separated by the peeling machine. The bark and wood enter the slicer for primary crushing, and the wood chips (wood blocks) and bark chips are produced. Then they enter the crusher for crushing, and the sawdust is dried in the dryer and then enters the pellet forming machine for pelleting.
• Sawdust and wood chips: Pelletized after drying.
• Agricultural and forestry waste: Enter the chipper machine for primary crushing, then enter the hammer mill crusher for crushing, enter the dryer for drying, and then enter the pellet forming machine for pelleting.

1. Drying: This wood pellet line in Iceland project uses the hot smoke generated by a biomass hot air furnace to pass into the drying drum to dry the material. The hot air furnace flue gas and the material drying waste gas share the flue, and the raw material of the hot air furnace is self-generated material particles. If the moisture content of the material is greater than 20%, it needs to be dried, and the moisture content is kept between 5% and 18%.
2. Chipping and Crushing: Primary crushing is to crush large pieces of material into flakes or blocks; hammer mill crushing is to crush the material to be crushed into materials with a diameter of less than 10mm. Since the crushing process generates a large amount of dust, the crushing process should be carried out in a closed workshop.
3. Granulation: The dried and crushed materials are granulated by a biomass pellet machine, and the finished product length is about 3~5cm.
4. Cooling and packaging: The temperature of the pellet fuel when it is pressed out of the pellet machine can reach 70-90℃, and it is packaged after natural air cooling in the cooling silo.

Project construction process

1. Site leveling: Site leveling mainly includes clearing, excavation and backfilling. Manual clearing and manual transplanting of seedlings; small machinery is used in combination with manual excavation; the land is backfilled with soil and sand, transported by dump trucks, leveled by bulldozers, and compacted by rolling.
2. Foundation construction and main engineering: Generally, bulldozers, excavators, dump trucks, etc. are used to excavate and transport the site. The main work content includes: building construction access roads, removing obstacles such as surface green vegetation, building construction camps and temporary drainage ditches, excavating foundations and completing foundation support, etc. Then use drilling machines, hydraulic pile drivers, etc. to carry out pile foundation engineering.
3. Decoration engineering: including internal and external decoration engineering, of which internal decoration includes ground engineering, door and window installation engineering, etc., and external decoration includes roof engineering, etc.
4. Installation engineering: installation of mechanical and electrical equipment, green landscaping.

layout design of the 4 t/h wood pellet plant in Iceland

The existing buildings in the factory are as follows: there is a finished product warehouse in the northeast corner, a wood production workshop in the south, an office building in the west, a septic tank in the northwest corner, and a fire water tank in the middle of the factory.

This Iceland wood pellet production line project will build a new production workshop of 2,000 square meters on the south side of the finished product warehouse, and 1,000 square meters on the west side of the new production workshop will be reserved for raw material storage. The fence of the factory area leased by this project has been completed, and the ground has been greened or hardened. In the rainy season, materials will not be washed away and pollute the downstream river.

Prospects for establishing a good ce wood pellet line in Iceland

Wood pellets play an important role in meeting environmental targets, and going ahead to 2030 and beyond, could do more.

All the Nordics – Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland are forerunners in this respect. District heating, cooling and combined heat and power (CHP) are all widely implemented and primarily use biomass fuels such as biogas, wood pellets(by wood pellet plant), woodchips and municipal solid waste (MSW). With the exception of Iceland that makes good use of its bountiful volcanic geothermal assets instead.

The Nordic energy majors and municipal district heating companies such as E.ON, Fortum, Helen, Stockholm Exergi, Vattenfall, and Ørsted have already embarked on fossil-fuel phase-outs in their energy systems including those used in back-up and peak load units. Coal, oil and fossil gas are being replaced with renewable solutions including wood pellets(from wood pellet mill production line).

The use of biofuel wood pellets(from wood pellet plant) is not confined to replacing coal in retrofitted power plants and in the Nordics, district heat, ideally from a CHP plant, and residential heating are two important sectors.

According to Bioenergy Europe, in 2017, the residential sector represented 21 percent of the total final energy consumption in the EU (excluding electricity consumption) and only 23 percent of the energy consumption of households (excluding electricity) was from renewables, mainly bioenergy at 87 percent.

There is an urgent need to decarbonise the residential sector further and pellets offer one important solution not least in combination with other renewables and technologies.

About renewable energy in Iceland

Iceland can be highlighted as an example of development of bioenergy from forest. Iceland has enormous geothermal heat reserves and a lot of hydropower. Iceland can be said to be the most developed country when we are talking about use of renewable energy. More than 80 % of total energy consumption is based on renewable energy.

The electricity price is Iceland is the lowest in whole Europe which make the use of biomass challenging. Still, wood energy can be an option. In Eastern part of the country, geothermal heat is very difficult and expensive to search. Base rock is solid and volcanic activity is low, that is why some areas are totally without possibilities to utilise this best known source of energy in "treeless land". When the forestry is growing in Iceland, there started to be competitive users' of wood which maintain and support more and more the healthy competition and growing of forest businesses in Iceland.

Iceland supply chain of wood energy

Harvesting operations of Larch in Icelandic using excavator mounted harvest, forwarding using tractor with forest trailer and crane, chipping at roadside terminal and truck transport to the power plant or wood pellet plant.

About the wood energy application in Iceland

It is important that internal and external technology and know-how transfer must be done carefully and systems need to be adapted into local operational environment. Wood energy alone is not the solution even for Iceland's energy production, but it can be a local solution in many smaller locations, near or far.

Iceland has huge renewable resources which have help a lot to be a successful country in the use of renewables. The key challenge is the step to increase the use of renewables also in transportation. Electric cars might be a solution if the electricity price remains low. However, not all the parts of Iceland can use geothermal or hydropower, therefore the use of biomass has its place and is needed as local solution. Just as elsewhere, Icelandic heating entrepreneurs also have their challenges. There are several energy sources competing with wood, and they are relatively cheap, particularly electricity.

A new forest energy plan is currently being worked on for Grimsey Island. It is the only place in Iceland where oil is still used for heating. Icelanders have built a system that suits the conditions in their country and have developed the links in the chain so that a vital and varied forestry sector is now operational in Iceland. If you can establish viable wood energy chain in Iceland, you can do it anywhere!