To what specifications are your wood pellets guaranteed?
Forever Fuels supplies 6mm ENplus-A1 quality wood pellets. We supply the pellets in bulk, blown from purpose-built pressurised tankers, and in small bags on 1-tonne pallets.
Our wood pellets are specified (and sampled and analysed to test conformance) according to the EN 14961 European standard. Our specification has been chosen to comply not only with the suggested A1 grade in EN 14961-2, but also the top-grade specifications from the German DINplus and the Austrian ÖNorm schemes. Most boilers available today should work well with this specification.
Our 6mm premium-quality wood pellets meet the following specification:
| Parameter | Forever Fuels Specification | Standards | Unit | ||
| CEN/TS 14961-2 Grade A1 | ÖNORM M1735 | DIN+ (DIN 51731) | |||
| Moisture (M) | ≤10.0 | ≤10.0 | ≤12.0 | ≤12.0 | w-% |
| Ash, 550°C (A) | ≤0.7 | ≤0.7 | w-% | ||
| Ash, 815°C | ≤0.5 | ≤0.5 | ≤0.5 | w-% | |
| Durability (DU) | ≥97.7 | ≥97.5 | ≥97.7 | w-% | |
| Fines (F)2 | ≤1.0 | ≤1.0 | ≤1.0 | ≤1.0 | w-% |
| Additives | ≤2.0 | ≤2.0 | ≤2.0 | ≤2.0 | w-% |
| Net calorific value (Q) | ≥5.0 | ≥4.6 | ≥5.0 | ≥5.0 | kWh/kg |
| Net calorific value (Q) | ≥18.0 | ≥16.5 | ≥18.0 | ≥18.0 | MJ/kg |
| Bulk density (BD) | ≥600 | ≥600 | kg/m3 | ||
| Nitrogen (N) | ≤0.3 | ≤0.3 | ≤0.3 | ≤0.3 | w-% |
| Sulphur (S) | ≤0.03 | ≤0.03 | ≤0.04 | ≤0.04 | w-% |
| Chlorine (Cl) | ≤0.02 | ≤0.02 | ≤0.02 | ≤0.02 | w-% |
| Arsenic (As) | ≤0.87 | ≤1.0 | ≤0.87 | mg/kg | |
| Cadmium (Cd) | ≤0.5 | ≤0.5 | ≤0.5 | mg/kg | |
| Chromium (Cr) | ≤8.0 | ≤10.0 | ≤8.0 | mg/kg | |
| Copper (Cu) | ≤5.0 | ≤10.0 | ≤5.0 | mg/kg | |
| Lead (Pb) | ≤10.0 | ≤10.0 | ≤10.0 | mg/kg | |
| Mercury (Hg) | ≤0.05 | ≤0.1 | ≤0.05 | mg/kg | |
| Nickel (Ni) | ≤10.0 | ≤10.0 | mg/kg | ||
| Zinc (Zn) | ≤100 | ≤100 | ≤100 | mg/kg | |
| Ash melting behaviour, deformation temp. (DT) | ≥1200 | To be stated | °C | ||
| Origin and source | 1.1.3 Stemwood 1.2.1 Chemically-untreated wood residues | ||||
w-% = per cent by weight. Moisture, Mechanical durability, Fines and Net calorific value (for EN-14961-2) are on an as-received, wet basis. Other components are on a dry basis. Limit of quantitation and other details available on request.
2 Fines are measured at the factory gate for pellets supplied in bulk, or at the point of bagging for bagged wood pellets. Premium 8mm and 6mm wood pellets will be cleaned before loading on the delivery vehicle to minimize the delivered fines-content. The delivered fines-content will depend on many factors, including the design of your installation.
The permitted lengths relate to the diameter of the wood pellets, and differ more substantially between the different national and European standards than the other components. Where standardisation across the standards is not practical, we adopt the EN 14961 specification, which should supersede the national standards. In the case of 6mm-diameter A1-grade wood pellets, EN 14961 requires that the length falls within the range: greater than 3.15mm and less than 40mm (with upto 1% allowed upto 45mm long).
The above parameters are the highest specification envisaged in the standard. In practice, our wood pellets are significantly better than this specification in some aspects. For example, the moisture content will normally be under 8%, the ash content is expected to be under to 0.5%, and the sulphur, nitrogen and chlorine contents are so low as to be negligible (0.01%, 0.1% and 0.01% respectively).
The wood pellets are produced from virgin-fibre softwood. Only the highest-quality, clean, fresh wood is used in our top-grade wood pellets (no recovered materials, minimal bark), sourced from the forestry and timber industries.
Additionally (also referenced in EN 14961), we prefer wood pellets with no additives, and specify a maximum additive-level of 2% by weight, dry basis. As per recommendation in EN 14961, only products from agricultural and forestry biomass that have not been chemically modified are approved to be added as pressing aids. In practice, the pellets that we supply at the time of writing contain no additives.
Local and industrial-grade wood pellets
Wood pellets from local producers will vary in quality. Some are now addressing the demand for high-grade wood pellets, to the above specifications. Many are limited (by the feedstock available within the area and the lower technical sophistication of smaller-scale equipment) to producing a lower-specification, industrial-grade wood pellet, e.g. D08 M12 A1.0 E4.6 DU95 F3.0 N1.0 S0.1 Cl0.1.
We recommend only top-grade wood pellets for small-to-medium-sized boilers, but if you have robust equipment capable of taking a more robust wood pellet, we will be happy to discuss supplying you with industrial-grade wood pellets. You will have the assurance of our substantial stocks of high-grade wood pellets to fall back on if the local producer's output varies, or if your equipment proves less happy with industrial-grade wood pellets than you had hoped.
