Price Comparison between Wood / Biomass and Oil Heating Systems

Wood Pellet / Chip are carbon neutral fuels, therefore are exempt from the Carbon tax, unlike oil or gas fuels.

Due to sustainable forestry the long term future of wood fuel is secure, for example there is 30% more forestry in Europe today than there was in the 1940’s unlike oil where the great debate is on Peak Oil backed up by the unstable pricing we see on a daily basis.

Considerable environmental and financial savings have been made using biomass fuels compared to fossil fuels year on year since Eco Boilers entered the market in 2004.

Today Ireland has three manufacturers who are producing wood pellet fuel equal to if not better quality than much of the wood fuel we saw imported from Europe in the past seven years.

Crops of willow and miscanthus that were planted by farmers who many thought were taking a big chance are now coming available to fuel many of the wood chip burners available for the industrial, commercial and hospitality industries.

We can take a look at the price changes for home heating oil for the past two years and compare it to wood pellet bulk delivery (3 tonnes).

On average the heat output of 2 tonnes of wood pellet = the 1000 litres of home heating oil.

August 2011 bulk wood pellet delivered on average costs €220.00 per tonne x 2 to compare with the 1000 litre oil price.

August 2009 bulk wood pellet delivered €200.00 per tonne x 2 to compare with the 1000 litre oil price.

Some have argued that the cost of wood pellet is tracking the price of home heating oil, this happens because wood pellet is delivered in trucks that use diesel the price of which increases in cost almost in line with heating oil.

However the graph shows a 100% increase in the price of home heating oil between September 2009 and May 2011.

Wood pellet has remained stable in price with a reasonable price increase of approximately 10%.