A small household boiler that will provide enough heat for a households annual energy needs will cost in the region of £10,000 to £15,000. There is also an annual service charge of around £100 and purchasing of biomass fuel for the boiler, circa £100~£200 per tonne with around 10~15 tonnes needed annually for a 4 bedroom house. This means that both installation and annual running costs can be quite large for small scale projects.
| Annual Heat Requirement (kWh) | Fuel Requirements (Wood Pellets – tonnes) | Size of store m3 |
| 10,000 | 4 | 9.00 |
| 15,000 | 6 | 13.50 |
| 20,000 | 8 | 18.00 |
| 25,000 | 10 | 22.50 |
| 30,000 | 12 | 27.00 |
| 35,000 | 14 | 31.50 |
However, for larger scale projects research has shown that running costs and installation costs can become very economical compared to more traditional methods of heat generation. The following table shows biomass costs per kW compared to other forms of heat generation:
| Price per unit | kWh per unit | pence per kWh | Average Household heating requirement kWh | Average annual cost | |
| Wood Chips | £80 per tonne | 3,500 kWh/t | £0.02 | 30,000 | £960.00 |
| Wood Pellets | £185 per tonne | 4,800 kWh/t | £0.04 | 30,000 | £2,220.00 |
| Natural Gas | £0.04/kWh | 1 | £0.04 | 30,000 | £1,200.00 |
| Oil | £0.05/kWh | 1 | £0.05 | 30,000 | £1,500.00 |
| Electricity | £0.12/kWh | 1 | £0.12 | 30,000 | £3,600.00 |
From here you can see that biomass can be one of the cheapest forms of heat generation per kW and is also the most sustainable. However, the costs of the fuel including delivery will deviate and can be considerable, whilst you also need to store the fuel, which can take up a lot of space. Therefore, the costs above should be taken as a rough example, as each individual situation will be different. Also, many boilers will have different efficiency ratios. However, the introduction of the RHI will help make the biomass boilers become more cost effective.
Visit the Biomass and Log Burners Home Page
Other pages of interest in this section:
- What is Biomass?
- How does it work?
- How much energy does it produce?
- How much does it cost?
- Are there Grants and Funding available?
- What is the Payback Period?
- Future Technology
- Overall Assessment
