As part of the Residues2Revenues 2023 event being run in Rotorua, New Zealand on 25-26 July for local forest owners, harvesting and wood chipping contractors and bio-fuel aggregators, an international showcase of new wood chipping and grinding technologies is being showcased for event delegates.

It’s designed to be practical with advice from global chipper and grinder suppliers on how to select the right machine for your woody biomass harvesting needs.

Key questions on selection of the equipment include “what’s your customer buying? what’s the end product that you’re making and what are they looking for? If the customer is looking to purchase an engineered chip with very particular specifications, a drum chipper is likely to be the more appropriate choice. If it’s a logging or land clearing operation that wants to process whole trees at a fast rate, and produce a quality dimensional chip, then a whole tree chipper is normally the preferred option.

For producing residential wood pellets, the feedstock needs to be relatively clean, and a chipper is likely to be the better option for processing the wood due to its ability process clean feedstock quickly. If you’re going into industrial pellets that can be a little dirtier, so you can get into some grinder type applications.

To answer these questions and to provide the very latest updates on wood chipping and grinding technologies, major equipment suppliers into Australasia will be presenting as part of a two hour in-field chipping workshop sponsored by EECA running just before the Residues2Revenues 2023 event on the morning of Tuesday 25 July. Presenters and companies involved in the workshop include;

Astec Industries, Inc., USA
Hydralada representing Bandit Industries and Arjes
Bruks Siwertell, Sweden
Vermeer Asia Pacific, Singapore
Morbark USA

In addition, EECA will be providing guidance on a new fund that’s been set up (the Biomass Supply Chain Investment Fund) to deal with the supply side of biomass. It’s been designed specifically to cater for the huge interest being shown in harvesting and processing woody biomass and for companies or organisations who can contribute to increasing the supply of biomass (chip, hog fuel, pellets).

Details on Residues2Revenues 2023 can be found on the event website, www.woodresidues.events