History

One of the main reasons for this development was initially the energy requirements of the owner’s timber mill. Large amounts of electricity were needed for machines and a lot of heat for drying the sawn timber. As the heat requirement was too low for the economic operation of a steam turbine, the search for an optimal solution was long in vain. As there was no viable technology on the market, the first attempts to produce wood gas for a gas engine were started in 2010.

The knowledge available at the time served as the basis for the development of a system. It was already clear that a wood gas system that required repairs almost every day and was prone to faults was not viable. Another requirement was that the system should work without any problems with standard wood chips, including fines and bark. This solution had to be characterised by efficiency, functionality and low complexity.

After many series of tests with advances and setbacks, a carburettor had already been developed by the end of 2012, the basic system of which has hardly changed to this day. Significant improvements have been made in recent years in the area of service life through the use of special materials for heavily loaded parts. The gas purification concept has also proved very successful to date, with the service life of the filters now exceeding one year. The originally used naturally aspirated engines were replaced by turbocharged engines in 2014, which are significantly more efficient and require less maintenance.