INSPIRATION

Great to know that your cyclic solarola kilns are taking it easy at night and you are not paying overtime rates to supervise them overnight!

It is hard to justify extra expense of a heat storage system (hot water or otherwise) so that I can waste 20% of my energy in the two-way exchange process and add considerably to my energy and maintenance costs to dry at night when it costs more and makes literally no sense to do so.

A typical advanced 2006 model solarola kiln in average climate zones produces energy savings valued at approximately 4-6 times their upfront cost over a ten year life span when operating in a moderate climate. (Assuming favorably priced natural gas as an alternative to solar-gas operation drying on the same low temperature schedules in a modern conventional kiln). Higher savings are available where gas costs are higher than $7/gj. as in Australia.

In moderate to hot climates, no supplementary heating whatsoever is required to dry most hardwoods or larger section softwood timbers as fast as they can be dried in conventional low temperature schedules on a year round basis.

By our estimates, the value of cyclic drying in energy management terms is at least equivalent to a 30% energy saving compared to any system that relies on heat storage devices.

In other words, another system has to produce at least 30% more energy than us to break even if it does not practice our highly developed optimized cyclic drying principles.

A number of 2002 model kiln clients are drying hardwood in times similar to conventional kilns without our remarkable and relatively recent technology improvements.

Our bubble-wrap inner collector cover improves collector angulation to sunlight and greatly enhances solar collection capacity because a significant part of the cover is directed at the sun at all times from sunrise to sunset; without motors or costly tracking devices!

Cost of replacing plastic kiln covers every 4-5 years is as little as $0.05 per cubic metre on softwood and marginally more on hardwood; a fraction of the cost of regular maintenance and replacement of panels for conventional kilns in acid hemlock, hardwood and chemical treated drying environments.

Relatively recent advances in wood waste power generation technology and our technology make new, more profitable options available for mill operations. In many cases, considerably more net profit can be generated at an improved level of ROI by using wood waste to produce electricity for your sawmill or sale to the grid and using waste hot water from that process to supplement our solar drying technology; that is, compared to following old practice of using wood-waste to produce steam heat for drying. Note that this comment takes into account all factors in the calculations; detailed considerations made possible by my long history of sawmill general management and best-practice consulting support this comment!

Our solar kilns may be heated by electricity. They are a natural fit with waste-fired electricity production because peak energy can be assigned to night drying when other processes (sawmill, chipping etc) are often not using electricity and external demand is lowest. They can also use the hot water or low grade steam by-products from the generation process.

If you have elected to purchase a gas fired conventional kiln then you have major cost problems ahead, even if you do take up the more efficient cyclic prescription. It is only because our system uses none or a fraction of the gas that conventional systems that the numbers stack up.

If any other solar kiln manufacturer suggests he can dry timber at 30% of the cost of alternative systems, ask if the capital costs (depreciation and interest) are included.

If he suggests his technology can dry at an energy cost 70% less than a conventional system, ask “under what conditions”. It is possible to claim zero supplementary heat energy input or varying percentages if the drying time is increased due to moderate schedules.

Solar contribution levels and heat energy savings in Vancouver Canada are only 20% annually compared to Melbourne Australia. The best solar heat production month in Vancouver is better than the best in Brisbane, Australia.

Our technology is reasonably portable. Foundation costs are very low compared to box-type structures and infrastructure markedly lower than conventional technologies. They can be readily knocked down and transported.

Flexibility: A 250cbm capacity kiln that costs around 50% of the cost of a box-type structure may be doubled in size by adding length as the business grows for around half the original kiln cost.