WBdec21pgs_SS.qxp_Wood Bioenergy Magazine 11/9/21 8:56 AM Page 24
■ heat energy
Lots Of Energy
Austrian Firm Has It F
or more than 55 years, the Lower Austria-based company Polytechnik has been specializing in power generation from biomass. With more than 3,300 installations worldwide, the company has evolved into a global player and leading supplier of customized solutions for any application, whether it’s warm water, thermal oil or steam, from cogeneration plants to process heat generators and municipal heating networks. The Polytechnik Group has 240 employees and, along with its main factory in Weissenbach, Austria, and its subsidiary in Auenwald, Germany, it has branch offices in Hungary, Switzerland, France, Poland, Russia, Romania, Belarus, China and Australia/New Zealand. With its independent subsidiary, Polytechnik has been active in Australia and New Zealand for more than 10 years and now has a multitude of installations there. New Zealand’s forests cover 10.1 million ha and 38% of its total area. In 2019, around 37 million m³ of timber was harvested. One important local consumer is the sawmill industry, which produced 4.4 million m3 of sawn timber in 2019. Despite the great distances and restrictions caused by the pandemic, Polytechnik successfully completed projects in New Zealand, which adapted an extremely rigid containment strategy.
WET Gisborne Gisborne has become the center of a potential “revolution” in timber processing and housing construction in New Zealand. The plant of WET (wood engineering technology) produces OEL (optimized engineered lumber), which is 40% stronger than comparable standard constructional lumber. OEL is made from thin lumber strips that are fingerjointed and laminated together. By laminating, its stiffness and strength
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are improved and therefore timber of lower quality and with smaller diameters can be used for a highquality construction product. WET’s technology turns untreated round timber, which otherwise would be sent abroad, into an innovative, high-quality product. With the start of the construction of a second line, which will more than double the site’s capacity, a decision was made for the installation of a Polytechnik thermal oil plant. The plant, which is currently being built, will supply the site’s drying chambers as well as other consumers with 235°C thermal oil. With this installation, the company achieves independence from the neighboring sawmill, which currently supplies heat to the drying chambers, and emissions are reduced by more than 90% compared to the existing plant due to the highly efficient combustion system combined with an electrostatic precipitator. Residual materials from the sawmill, mainly very wet wood shavings, as well as waste material from the production, like wood chips, are used as fuel. In order to keep the efficiency for the operational time of 50 weeks per year at an optimal value, Polytechnik employs a patented cleaning system which keeps the thermal oil boiler’s heating surfaces free of fly ash and thereby reduces the operating cost and increases the service life of the thermal oil boiler.
Pan Pac In 2017, the Japanese company Pan Pac Forest Products finished a $24 million refurbishment of its sawmill in Milburn, NZ. Production was doubled from 50,000 m3 to 100,000 m3 of sawn timber per year. The plant in Milburn, south of Dunedin, close to Milton, is using some of the newest and most environmentally friendly equipment, from the fuel source to the biomass heating plant with exhaust gas cleaning and the wood drying plant with cutting-edge technology. In Milburn, 100% pine trees are processed into lumber, which currently is intended exclusively for export to Asian customers. The pine is sourced from the surrounding area of Otago, from small forest properties as well as from City Forests, Matariki and Wenita. The lumber is used for furniture, housings or boxes, including fingerjointed and edge-glued products. Most
Wood Bioenergy / December 2021
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