Biomass boiler cost
The cost of a biomass boiler will vary depending on certain factors, with the main ones being; who the manufacturer is, what size is the boiler, and what feed system it comes with.
- Manufacturer - As with many things in life, some manufacturers produce better equipment than others. There are a number of good biomass boiler manufacturers out there, and as long as they are installed and commissioned correctly, you shouldn't be disappointed with any of them. There are however a lot of poor quality ones with little or no backup from the manufacturer. Whilst it may appear money can initially be saved by going for a very cheap boiler, it can be a case of false savings, and more often or not its a decision people live to regret.
- Size - As you would expect, the larger the boiler the higher the cost
- Type of boiler / fuel feed system - In the same size brackets log boilers are the cheapest. These are typically less complex systems and are manual feed, so there is less materials that make up the boiler. Pellet and chip boilers are broadly speaking the same price, though chip is slightly more expensive due to the nature of the fuel feed delivery system.
There are other factors as well which can influence price such as a requirement for very long run hours, burning a non-standard type of fuel, running at higher temperatures etc, but these are more specialist systems where far fewer of them are installed.
It is very important to remember that a biomass boiler is just one element of a full installation, so to give just a boiler cost would be misleading in terms of the total installed cost.
Biomass boiler installation cost
The biomass boiler is just one element of an installation. To use a car analogy, its the engine that provides the power, though there are still a number of other important components required like the exhaust and wheels to name a couple., then there is the labour required to construct it. Along with the cost of the boiler, you also need the following for a basic plant room installation; flue to get rid of the combustion gases, a thermal store which holds the water that the boiler heats up, heat meter to measure the energy produced, pumps to circulate the water, as well as a number of valves, pipework and fittings to connect all of the components together, mechanical and electrical labour. On a typical biomass boiler plant room installation, the boiler makes up around 55% of the total project cost, the rest of the components around 30%, then the labour and delivery will be around 15%.
The price of an install can vary depending on the site specifics, but for the supply and installation of all the required biomass equipment in the plant room, you can expect the following typical costs for a pellet / chip system:
- 50kW - £32.5k
- 75kW - £37.5k
- 100kW - £42.5k
- 150kW - £50k
- 200kW - £80k
- 350kW - £125k
- 500kW - £170k
- 1MW - £250k
Biomass boiler cost per kW
The cost per kW for a biomass system will depend on a number of factors. There are however economies of scale involved, where the larger boilers workout cheap per kW than the smaller ones.
Is a biomass boiler still worth the investment?
In a word, yes!
Whilst the government incentives have been reduced for any boiler below 1MW in size, there are still a number of schemes out there where the installation of a biomass system not only makes perfect sense technically, but is also worth the investment. On many schemes we still see a 4 to 5 year payback, giving a return on investment of 20 to 25%.
Feel free to contact us to discuss your project. We have sold approaching a thousand boilers for a wide range of projects, so typically a 10 minute chat is all we need to be able to not only talk you through how you project should be approached and the system you need, but also provide you with a budget price and estimated financial return.