The wood chips for heating
These are more or less large wood chips depending on the machine that crushed them: they are therefore pieces of chipped wood. Their length can vary from 1 to 6 cm, and their thickness and width usually do not exceed 2 to 3 cm. Their name comes from the fact that they are generally made directly in the forest during delimbing thanks to on-site chippers, but they can also come from the wood industry or road maintenance.
They are often delivered “green” and therefore require drying (natural or forced) before combustion. They are sold in MAP (apparent cubic meter of platelets) or per tonne. The grain size and moisture content are generally specified in supply contracts. The storage volume is very large, around 10 times the volume of fuel oil (Pellets are 3 times the volume of fuel oil).
Their use is therefore generally reserved for SMEs, industries or collective heating systems (hospitals, schools, etc.)
Price and energy equivalent wafers
The price of the delivered tonne of green chips is of the order of a tonne of green log wood or even slightly lower. As orders are often made for collective boilers with supply contracts of around ten tonnes per year, it is very difficult to obtain price orders.
1 ton of dry platelets (20% to 30% humidity) is equivalent to 300-350 liters of fuel oil but takes the volume of about 4m3 or 4000L of fuel oil! For the equivalent of 3000L of fuel oil, it would therefore require a storage volume of around 40 m²! We understand why the use of platelets by individuals can quickly become problematic and therefore remains very limited!