Coordinated Woodfuel Initiative

Boosting the take-up of biomass technology in areas of outstanding natural beauty (AONBs)

The Coordinated Woodfuel Initiative (CWI) ran from Autumn 2006 to Spring 2008. The initiative was conceived and managed by CSE.

The aim of the initiative was to boost the number of small- and community-scale biomass boilers installed in the South West of England.

CWI helped to deliver almost 1.3MWth of additional biomass heating capacity in the region - a total of 24 installations - which it was estimated will increase the market for forest industry products in the region by some 670 tonnes or 1,918m3 annually.

Most significantly, these installations will deliver long-term CO2 emissions reductions of an estimated 782 tonnes per year for the life of the installations. They will also act as demonstrations to others who are considering environmentally friendly heating.

CWI provided a telephone advice line, free site visits from experts, and access to capital grants. The telephone advice line, the South West Woodfuel Advice Service, provided support to people in households, communities, schools, businesses and the public sector on the technicalities involved in wood fuelled heating.

From these calls properties that were particularly suited to biomass heating were offered a free site visits from one of a number of a woodfuel experts. These visits were backed up by a tailored report that included specific recommendations for how to proceed towards installation.

A small number of grants were also made available to encourage installations within participating protected landscape areas.

Note. We no longer offer the South West Woodfuel Advice telephone service, but you can download a guide to small-scale wood-fuelled heating here. For more general advice about saving energy in the home, please call your local Energy Saving Trust advice centre on 0800 512 012. See also the Biomass Energy Centre - www.biomassenergycentre.org.uk

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Coordinated Woodfuel Initiative