I’ve recently come across a really nice video of a wood pellet plant in the US. The video contains quite a bit of detail on their operation. They are currently producing premium pellets, and aiming for the 0.5-1% ash bracket. However they do wish to move into producing a more standard pellet in the future. The standard pellet will produce higher ash content, however it will be cheaper to produce. Currently there is a lot of wood residue, which cannot be processed into fuel pellets because it is not suitable to produce a premium grade of pellet. However many pellet stoves and boilers can only burn a premium standard of pellet fuel. This is where is it an advantage to purchase a more fuel flexible pellet stove or boiler to be able to use a cheaper standard pellet, instead of only premium pellets.
Pellet Mill from The Wild Center on Vimeo.
The video shows their process from start to finish. They have chips delivered by truck, and they go through the first hammer mill. These chips then get dried to probably around 10% moisture content, and then they go through a second hammer mill to reduce the particles ready for the pellet mill. They are using a series of ring die pellet mills to produce the pellets, which are then cooled and sent to a large storage silo.
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