The Energy Crops Company is one of the UK’s leading suppliers of renewable heating solutions, helping organisations of all sizes cut their carbon footprint. The new truck will help keep The Energy Crops Company’s own emissions to a minimum.
The Energy Crops Company’s truck will primarily be used in a major contract with Nottinghamshire County Council, to supply them with wood pellets for heating fuel. The company won the prestigious contract with the council in January to fuel the wood pellet units which are increasingly replacing coal-fired boilers in local schools.
Managing Director, Graham Hilton explains: “Climate change and rising fossil fuel prices affect us all and so we are now seeing increased public popularity and government support for sustainable and cost-effective fuels such as wood pellets. We supply carbon-neutral fuel to organisations throughout the UK, so it’s important that the fuel we use is carbon neutral too.”
The 26-tonne truck has a Selective Catalytic Reduction which runs on a 50:50 mix of BioDiesel and standard mineral diesel. By using BioDiesel, its emissions are almost CO2 neutral as the carbon released was already absorbed by the vegetable matter, from which the BioDiesel is made, during its lifetime. Furthermore, BioDiesel produces zero sulphur and aromatic emissions and minimal lower particulate emissions. It is also biodegradable and non-toxic and therefore beneficial to humans, animals and plants.
Hilton continues: “The Axor is working out of our store in Goole, East Yorkshire and has been very well received by our driver. It is our objective to set up a reliable nationwide distribution network for our fuel, to make renewable heating a real and practical alternative to fossil fuels. We believe that our decision to use BioDiesel to fuel our truck, coupled with the increasing popularity of biomass heating methods, will lead to a very exciting future for us.”
Wood pellets are typically stored at the point of manufacture, or at depots closer to the customers they serve. The pellets are then delivered to the user’s own storage facilities, and pneumatically blown along a flexible hose from truck to store.
The dried pellets are produced from wood taken from sustainable forests and are also a carbon neutral source of heat, as the CO2 absorbed by the trees during growth effectively cancels out that which is produced when they are burnt.
Although the pellets require specially adapted biomass boilers, they are proving to be a highly effective and more efficient alternative to traditional heating methods. They produce twice as much energy as ‘wet’ wood: 1kg of pellets provides as much heat as a one kilowatt electric fire running for five hours. |
