# Biomass Fuel Strategy

If the steam boiler goes the biomass route (see the options in
[sustainability](sustainability.md) and the Getabec candidate in the
[utilities CSV](finance/utilities-investment.csv)), the fuel comes from two
sources: the team's own 60 rai of currently unused land, and northern
Thailand's agricultural waste market. Figures below are planning estimates,
plus or minus a wide margin, to be refined against the actual boiler choice
and duty cycle.

## Demand: what the boiler would burn

The 400 kg/h boiler is roughly 300 kW thermal at full fire. With the heat
recovery architecture trimming the load and realistic duty cycles:

- Mature plant (semi-auto plus automated lines, two shifts, ~300 days/yr):
  roughly **350 to 400 tonnes of air-dry wood per year** (at ~80% boiler
  efficiency and ~4 kWh/kg air-dry wood)
- Early operations (one press line, single shift): roughly a quarter of
  that, **~90 to 100 t/yr**

## The 60 rai: own-grown fuelwood

60 rai is 9.6 hectares. Managed as short-rotation coppice (planted once,
harvested on a 2 to 4 year cycle, regrowing from the stump), fast species
proven in Thailand (eucalyptus, acacia, leucaena, bamboo) yield roughly 8 to
14 air-dry tonnes per hectare per year. So the land can sustainably supply
about **80 to 135 t/yr**:

- Enough to cover **most or all of early operations**
- About **a quarter to a third of mature two-shift demand**

That makes the land a meaningful supplement and a strong brand story
("records pressed with steam from our own trees"), not a complete fuel
supply.

### The classification check comes first

The land is currently classified as forestry, and in Thailand that carries
legal weight. Before a single tree enters the fuel plan:

- Verify the parcel's actual status: clean Chanote title vs Sor Por Kor vs
  National Forest Reserve. Planting, harvesting, and transporting trees,
  even self-planted ones, can be restricted depending on classification,
  and some species are restricted regardless.
- If eligible, register the plantation under the forest plantation
  framework, which legalizes grow-and-harvest cycles and the transport
  paperwork.
- If the parcel carries actual standing forest, it should not be harvested
  for fuel: that would undercut the sustainability commitments the plant is
  built on. Coppice belongs on the degraded or empty portions.

## Filling the gap: the northern biomass market

The region fills the remainder easily and cheaply:

- **Longan orchard prunings**: Lamphun is Thailand's longan heartland and
  prunings are an established traded fuel
- **Sawmill and wood-processing residues**
- **Corn cobs and rice husk**: abundant regional crop wastes; a
  Getabec-class solid-fuel boiler is designed for exactly this fuel mix
- Buying from local farmers also strengthens the local-sourcing story that
  already runs through packaging and PVC

## Logistics on site

To reflect in the facility planning: a fuel storage shed (biomass
must be kept dry; monsoon-season storage sizing matters more than dry
season), chipping for coppice wood, ash handling, and the emissions stack
that comes with solid fuel. These are the capex/opex adders that the
biomass premium in the utilities CSV (roughly 4M to 7M THB for the boiler
package vs 2.5M to 4M electric/gas) partially reflects; fuel handling and
storage are additional.

## Decision framing

- Biomass makes the steam genuinely renewable and pairs with cheap northern
  fuel, at the cost of higher capex, fuel logistics, ash, and an emissions
  point
- The 60 rai tilts the economics and the story further toward biomass, but
  only after the land-title check clears
- The electric boiler remains the alternative: cleanest permitting, no fuel
  logistics, but effectively grid-powered steam at a ~300 kW draw. On
  PEA's time-of-use tariff that costs ~4.7M to 5.5M THB a year at mature
  load against ~0.35M to 0.8M of fuel for biomass, and ~1.4M to 1.7M
  against ~0.1M to 0.2M at early load, because the demand charge follows
  the boiler's full-power draw (estimates; see the
  [grid tariff](sustainability.md#grid-tariff-pea-and-what-it-decides)).
  The electric boiler is the more efficient machine; biomass is the far
  cheaper heat
- A staged path is possible: start electric (fast, clean permitting), plant
  the coppice now (first harvest in 2 to 4 years), and add the biomass
  boiler at the automated-line expansion when demand and the fuel supply
  have both matured. At the tariff above that is a permitting and logistics
  choice, not a cost one: every year on electric steam costs roughly 1.2M
  to 5M THB more than biomass, so the switch should come as soon as the
  permit and a fuel contract are in place