Well, we have come a long way in a short time!! The Government’s biomass incentive schemes are becoming more controlled and requiring properly recorded use of accredited and approved fuels. From November 2015, commercial and domestic customers who are claiming RHI (Renewable Heat Incentive) payments, will have to use and approved, accredited fuel in order to continue to receive RHI payments.

This is to ensure that the fuels in use are sustainable and that the process that the fuel itself has gone through, from it source point (as a tree) to its use point (in your fire or stove) is traceable. So, it would be unlikely that firewood, shipped across from Eastern Europe or indeed from any part of the globe, will meet those standards as the carbon footprint created in transportingthe wood such huge distance, negates the benefit of the use of what should be a sustainable carbon neutral fuel.

The application process to have the fuel that we produce here in our kiln accredited and approved, involved being able to prove the distances that the felled timber travels, on average, from the place where it was sourced to us here at Chalgrave. As we then do all of the processing and drying on site, we then have to provide proof again, of the average distance that that we travel to deliver the end product. The full ranges of details were then submitted into a formula/calculator and the requirements are that the emission result that the formula produces has to be less than 60 to have the fuel accredited and accepted.

We applied for both the normal seasoned wood which we use as our own fuel for our biomass boiler and also for the kiln dried processed timber which we retail to end users.

We didn’t just sneak it in in the high 50’s, we absolutely smashed it with the kiln dried logs being a massive 6.7 emission result and the seasoned logs were even lower at 2.7!! The difference, of course, is that we don’t resale and deliver the seasoned logs.

So, as well as being a authorised fuel and an accredited supplier on the Biomass Suppliers List, we also have one of the lowest emission results that could be achieved. If that is not a sustainable fuel, I don’t know what is!!