Sheets “best practices”

Sheets “best practices” that you are about to see come from a work that has been conducted within the framework of the European ECOINFLOW project (www.ecoinflow.com). The aim of this 3-year project is to promote better energy management in sawmills in order to reduce their energy bills and help to achieve national goals for 2020. ECOINFLOW is coordinated by the Norsk Treteknisk Institute. It involves 6 countries and 12 partners.

The following factsheets provide a detailed summary on various themes of input obtained through the visit of twenty mills participating in this project. These virtuous practices are grouped around 10 records classified by key sectors of sawmills energy business: process, drying, boiler and energy management.
Each sheet is built in a common presentation frame:

• Installation overview and issues,
• Technical description of the device(s) providing different configurations observed in each sawmill,
• Potential gains: energy savings, other improvements, reproducibility and possible points to note (difficulties, advanced installation advice, limitations).

For each factsheet, the levels of investment required both human and financial, are specified using visual criteria (from low to high). The return on investment is estimated according to the following criteria: short, medium and long term.*

FicheBP - Ch1 - Chaudière biomasse-1 Speed variators
FicheBP - Ch1 - Chaudière biomasse-1 Heat recovery on air compressor
FicheBP - Ch1 - Chaudière biomasse-1 Kit of condensers
FicheBP - Ch1 - Chaudière biomasse-1 Compressed air
FicheBP - Ch1 - Chaudière biomasse-1 Lighting
FicheBP - Ch1 - Chaudière biomasse-1 Vacuum system
FicheBP - Ch1 - Chaudière biomasse-1 

Biomass Boiler
FicheBP - Ch1 - Chaudière biomasse-1 Heat recovery on kiln dryer
FicheBP - Ch1 - Chaudière biomasse-1 Speed variator fot the kiln dryer
FicheBP - Ch1 - Chaudière biomasse-1 Energy management
*: The human investment, the return on investment and the costs can vary greatly from a sawmill to another. They depend on a multitude of parameters and process variables (process types, quality of equipment used, expected lifetime of machinery and equipment, involvement of management staff, etc.). So, in order to help in the choice, for each identified good practices, human investment, return of investment and costs has been estimated as described below:

  • 1. 1. Human investment :
Low :
  • Few employees (1-2) and a single sector involved
  • Time-limited
Medium :
  • Several people involved (more than 2)
  • Time-limited
High
  • Strong involvement of the company on several different services
  • Over a long period (at least two months)

 

  • 2. Return on investment
Short term Less than 1 year
Medium term Between 1 and 4 years
Long term More than 4 years

 

  • 3. Costs
Low : From 0 € to 2000 €*.
Medium : From 2 000€ to 20 000 €*
High More than 20 000 €*

* : Estimated value.