BIOMASS
Pentland
Biomass –
fuel for the
family and
others
78 AUGUST 20 19 FORESTRYJOURNAL.CO.UKP
ENTLAND Biomass started out in
2006, set up to supply fuel for its
parent company Pentland Plants’
biomass boilers. Today it is one
of Scotland’s largest suppliers of
woodchip to the biomass industry. Based
in Loanhead, near Edinburgh, Pentland
Biomass is managed and run by Richard
Spray.
He said: “Our family decided to venture
into using biomass boilers because, at that
time, very few others were doing the same
thing. The high cost of oil had increased the
cost of supplying heat and hot water to our
family’s five and a half acres of greenhouses,
which were used to produce bedding plants.
We installed a 2 MW Reka boiler and within
two years we had our money back, bearing
in mind this was before the time of RHI
grants. Initially, we bought recycled timber
to burn in the boiler but soon started to
explore sourcing and producing our own
timber fuel.”
As early adopters of biomass as a means
to provide fuel, the Spray family found there
was a lot of interest in what they were doing.
Needing around 2,500 tonnes of woodfuel
themselves, setting up a fuel supply chain
made complete sense. Pentland Plants,
as well as having its own garden centre
operation on the Loanhead site, is also the
largest bedding plant supplier in Scotland.Richard’s sister Carolyn manages the
garden centre, while father David and
mother Hilda look after the bedding plant
side of the business.
Richard’s fellow director, Shiona
Macmillan, came on board 10 years ago
to look at the marketing of the business.
Up until two years ago, Pentland Biomass
also installed both domestic and
commercial biomass systems.
“We installed around 400
systems ranging from small
domestic ones to systems
in castles, hotels, and
schools,” said Richard.
“Up until recently, with
the RHI grants, you
could make a good
commercial case to a
client to install a system
and get a return on their
investment in a short number
of years. This is not so much
the case now and we took the
decision to pull out of installation
and concentrate on the woodfuel
supply side.”
From the beginning, finding the right
equipment to do the job has been part
of the challenge for Richard. Once the
decision was made to start sourcing his
own roundwood, he opted first for a Jenz 56 1chipper. He then sourced and moved on to
a Jenz 581 artic trailer-mounted chipper and
then one that was on a DAF B5 rigid truck,
ultimately ending up with a 400 hp Mus-Max
WT 10 XL trailer-mounted chipper.
The growth in Combined Heat and
Power (CHP) systems created a demand
for a chunkier size of woodchip. The Mus-
Max chipper, which could deal with
whole trees, was ideal for this
job, travelling the country
chipping logs for biomass.
However, not long after
having invested in this
machine, the market
was flooded with new
entrants and the number
of biomass installations
stopped growing. This
resulted in there being
more of a need to use the
other 400 hp Mus-Max WT 1 0
XL that Richard had invested
in. This chipper is operated
through power take-off supplied by
one of two Case 400 hp Magnum 380
CVX tractors and routinely operates at
the yard eight hours a day. Given that the
operator needs to spend so long at a time
operating the chipper, Richard ensured the
cab was modified to be placed on the crane
itself.PENTLAND BIOMASS
PRODUCES AROUND
15,000 TONNES OF DRY
CHIP A YEAR.
From producing timber fuel for personal use, Pentland
Biomass has grown into one of Scotland’s biggest
woodchip suppliers. Director Richard Spray spoke to
James Hendrie about how the business got there.