The process to develop a U.S. Wood Chip Heating Fuel Technical Quality Standard is cruising toward completion and moving into the implementation phase. You may recall that BTEC is a member of the project advisory committee tasked with the development of a wood chip standard suitable for US thermal applications. The two year project is under the leadership of BTEC members Biomass Energy Resource Center of the Vermont Energy Investment Corporation, Innovative Natural Resource Solutions LLC, as well as the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers. In January 2017, this committee made the decision to modify and adopt the existing international standard ISO 17225-4 rather than develop an entirely new standard for the US market.
A draft of the standard was circulated for stakeholder comment in July, 2017. It underwent two advisory committee votes and two rounds of stakeholder comments. Now it is under review by the American National Standards Institute. .
The committee has developed a draft usage guide for producers and consumers that is tentatively entitled “A Guide to Wood Chip Heating Fuel Quality: A Summary of ANSI/ASABE AD17225-4:2014 FEB2018 Solid Biofuels — Fuel Specifications and Classes — Part 4: Graded wood chips and its application in the U.S. Market. The table of contents includes these topics.
Summary of Standard
- Overview
- Normative Properties
- Informative Properties
- Summary Flow Diagram
Wood Chip Heating Fuel Quality, User Guide Section
- Using the Standard in Real World Applications
- Quality Assurance
- Production, Storage, and Transport Considerations for Producer
- Storage, Safe Handling and Use by Consumer
- Quality Assurance Summary
- Testing to Standard Specifications
- Testing Procedures and Methods
- Using Standard in Fuel Procurement
Appendices
- Definitions
- Abbreviations
- Unit conversions
- References Documents
- Model Wood Chip Fuel RFP
For more information, provide advice, or suggest conference or meeting of biomass industry leaders where a presentation on the standard would be welcome, please contact David Bancroft at dbancroft@biomassthermal.org or 202-596-3974, ext. 304.