Forest Service Unveils Cutting-edge, Wood-to-Electricity Generator

By Stevin Westcott, Press Officer, Southern Research Station

Dr. Les Groom explains the energy conversion process of the gasification unit while standing on a pile of wood chips (biomass).

WINNFIELD, LA – The U.S. Forest Service recently unveiled a state-of-the-art bioenergy generator during a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Kisatchie National Forest’s Winn Ranger District. National, regional, and local leaders gathered on Nov. 6, 2008, to view a gasification unit that converts wood into electricity for the District office and the power grid.

The unit is essentially a modified 6-cylinder engine that turns a turbine and produces 25 kilowatts per hour of electricity. The large, wood-using generator will provide enough electricity (15 kilowatts per hour) for the District office, a 4,000-square-foot facility where the equipment is located. Approximately 10 kilowatts of surplus electricity will be sold to a local electricity provider. The objective is for the Winn Ranger District to eventually supply much of its energy needs from wood chips. In the future, the Forest Service will evaluate the feasibility of adding a special module to convert gas produced by the unit into synthetic diesel for use in District vehicles. Wood chips supplied to the unit will come from understory removals crucial for wildfire fuels reduction as well as red-cockaded woodpecker habitat restoration.

The Forest Service’s Kisatchie National Forest, Southern Research Station (SRS), and Region 8, State and Private Forest (S&PF) collaborated to purchase and operate the wood gasification unit at the Winn Ranger District office.

“SRS will use the system to conduct biomass-to-bioenergy research, analyzing such things as whether electrical or liquid fuel output varies depending on the tree and section of tree burned,” said Les Groom, generator project leader with SRS.

S&PF staff will use the unit as a demonstration project for thinning forests for southern pine beetle control. The objective is to demonstrate to landowners that trees removed from thinning could be used as a feedstock for bioenergy production and/or biofuel. The goal is to demonstrate the use of cellulosic feedstocks for bioenergy, which may provide a market for woody biomass residues.

The Forest Service installed the system, constructed by Community Power Corporation, this summer.