Research and reports

Blue Mountain Lumber is a sawmill located in Southland, New Zealand. The sawmill was expanded in 2000 to enable the processing of approximately 160,000 tonnes sawlogs annually. Prior to expansion the sawmill operated with several small wood residue fuelled boilers that were at the end of their economic life. The site was dumping significant quantities of woodwaste into a local landfill.  As part of the expansion an energy facility was built to provide improved steam quality and capacity for increased steam loads.

Kapiti Coast District Council (KCDC) operates a sewage treatment works located in Paraparaumu. The works include a sludge drying plant that operates continuously. KCDC have installed a new wood fire boiler and this monitoring report gives an overview of the project.

This is part one of a two-phase report about bio-oil technologies and the manufacture of the product in New Zealand.

The report is aimed at investors; forest and mill owners who have access to quantities of remote forest and mill residue and may consider bio-oil production as a technically and economically viable business option.

Nelson based Nutrizeal Ltd have investigated options to replace their LPG hot water boiler with a biomass boiler.  Three different options are considered with simple paybacks ranging from 0.7 years to 2.4 years.