Personalized support for wood grinders, chippers and the complete line of recycling and forestry products sets Vermeer ahead of its competitors. Customers worldwide count on Vermeer Recycling and Forestry specialists to understand their unique geographical challenges and provide assistance to solve the most pressing challenges.
Different regions of the world operate wood grinders in unique environments. Consider Finland, where more than 75% of the country’s land is covered by forest. Established sustainable forest management practices ensure more wood is grown than what is harvested each year. This abundance presents opportunities and income for forest owners, sawmills, paper mills and the people they employ.
Westas Group, one of the largest family-owned sawmill companies in Finland and a Vermeer customer, uses sustainable practices to deliver 450,000 m3 (190,699,199 board ft) of high-quality spruce and pine-sawn lumber each year. Of this wood, 85% is exported to Asia, Africa and Europe.
“We’re a mid-size sawmilling company in Finland and have 170 people working for the company,” said Pekka Kopra, managing director and founder of the Westas Group.
The company operates two sawmills: the Pihlava Sawmill located along the Kokemäki River near the maritime port in Pori and Raunio Sawmill encompassing 20 ha (49.4 acres) along the Paimio River. The company uses wood grinders to maximize utilization of smaller-diameter wood.
“Our main product is lumber or timber, but byproducts from sawmilling are sold to the energy sector. We procure or purchase lots from private forest owners. These lots include small-diameter wood biomass that we’re selling to energy companies,” said Kopra.
Biomass presents opportunity
Renewable energy makes up around 35% of Finland’s total energy supply. Of that, 85% is created from biomass. Renewable heat is the main application for biomass in Finland, where use is steadily increasing as fossil fuel use decreases.
You need more than raw materials and a wood grinder to sell biomass chips. You need large population centers to buy them. Because Finland is a small country without many big cities, it takes a special setup for an operation to thrive.
“We have a good situation. We’re in the middle of the three biggest cities and have the location to develop this kind of business,” said Kopra.
Westas Group needed to find the right horizontal grinder to turn its small-diameter wood into biomass fuel to meet this growing demand. The company turned to Several Oy, the Vermeer dealer in Finland, and Recycling and Forestry specialist Tero Tirkkonen for help.
“I’m responsible for all sales and aftersales support for wood grinders, trommel screens and other recycling and forestry products,” said Tirkkonen. “A Recycling and Forestry specialist helps the customer set the machine up to maximize productivity.”
Tirkkonen is familiar with wood grinder trends in Finland and noted that electrical units were used in the 1960s and 1970s before shifting to mobile internal-combustion wood grinders in the 1980s and 1990s. Now, with climate change and noise pollution concerns, the market is shifting back to electric — although the shift will likely take years.
Finding the right wood grinder
Westas Group’s first consideration when selecting an equipment solution to produce biomass was industrial noise control. Mobile internal-combustion-powered wood grinders exceed acceptable noise limits around residential areas.
Surrounding residential areas would not permit the use of internal-combustion-powered mobile wood grinders in Finland because of noise restrictions.
“You cannot have any neighborhood within 5 kilometers (3 mi) while operating these grinders,” said Kopra.
An electric horizontal grinder can mitigate noise emissions.
“We’re starting to get more and more complaints, so the future is in electrical units,” said Tirkkonen.
There are a lot of internal-combustion-powered mobile wood grinders still in the marketplace.
“Ninety-nine percent of the wood grinders are mobile. We were one of the first companies to have a site with an electric horizontal grinder,” said Kopra.
Biomass requires consistent chip size
Westas Group’s next consideration when choosing the correct wood grinder was drum selection.
“We have two drum options,” said Tirkkonen. “About 50% of the customers in Finland are using chipping drums while the other 50% use grinding drums.”
Owning both drum options is the best choice for many wood grinding operations.
“Customers are chipping over the winter months and grinding the dirty material, including stumps, during the summer months,” noted Tirkkonen. “That keeps the wood grinder running continuously over the year. It’s hard to keep employees if you only have something for them to do for five or six months due to demand. You can provide more working days and working hours for the workers if you can keep the unit running over the summer months, too.”
For producing biomass chips, the best solution for Westas Group was a Vermeer HG6000E horizontal electric grinder with a chipping drum. The material being processed is free from debris and the chipping drum results in high quality chips for the energy plant.
“We don’t have any stumps. It’s clean, round, small-diameter wood and can be birch, spruce or Scandinavian pine. We have diameter bases from 4 cm up to 40 cm to 50 cm (1.6 in up to 15.7 in to 19.7 in),” said Kopra.
Tirkkonen explained it’s more effective to run this product through a chipper drum instead of grinding.
Production exceeds expectations
“We’re happy with the performance, that’s for sure,” said Kopra. “We had the electric horizontal grinder in operation for approximately one year. It was near the end of February 2023 when we started, and so far we’ve processed close to 300,000 loose m3 (10,594,400 ft3) of chips.”
Due to the output of the electric horizontal grinder, only one shift is required to keep up with demand.
“We normally operate it eight hours a day. For this type of biomass production, we try to operate year-round, but in the summertime, there is not much heating needed so that means there is less demand for biomass,” said Kopra.
Support helps drive success
It’s the job of the Recycling and Forestry specialist to make sure the wood grinder performs on the jobsite.
“We help the customer onsite,” said Tirkkonen. “I’m traveling around half of my working time. I spend a lot of time with the customers. You become friends with your customers instead of the salesman. They know they can call me even on Saturday evening. That’s important. The customer knows I have my phone always on and I’ll answer.”
Westas Group also stresses the importance of the Vermeer support center in the Netherlands. They work closely with the dealer to make sure they have parts on hand to keep operations running. The company attributes working closely with Vermeer as an important contributor to the overall success of its biomass project and it plans to replicate this success on future projects.
Recycling and Forestry specialists are there to help you determine the best solution for your operation and back it up with ongoing support. Contact your local Vermeer dealer to connect with your specialist today.
This article contains third-party observations, advice or experiences that do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Vermeer Corporation, its affiliates or its dealers. Testimonials and/or endorsements by customers in specific circumstances may not be representative of normal circumstances experienced by all customers.
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