Wood-fired boilers

Little by little, the municipality is replacing the old boilers in its main buildings with wood-fired boiler rooms, as ecology has an important place in Differdange. These are wood-chip or pellet boiler infrastructures, an ecological alternative to fuel oil.

Differdange is surrounded by nature, why not take advantage of it? When it was necessary to replace the boilers in some of our facilities, the alderman’s college immediately thought of the wood that the town owns on over 500ha.

Even if the installation of boilers of this type is quite expensive, it is above all a long-term investment for our children. In addition, the state supports the city up to 30% on each of these projects. The other interest is to ensure a certain independence of the municipality from foreign firms, foreign investors and gas supplies. Instead of depending on gas deliveries from Russia, the municipality prefers to invest within the greater region by re-injecting this money into our economic system, which can only be positive in the long term.

There are two types of boilers. Some will run on wood chips that the municipality produces itself, others will run on pellets, wood residues.

Two to three times a year, the workers of the municipality cut second-choice wood. While taking care not to take more wood than the forest produces, policy makers have made the decision to replant elsewhere.

The trunks go through a chipper that turns the wood into chips. The chips are stored, dried, and delivered by dump trucks to the various establishments in the municipality. The shavings fall into a silo which ensures the conservation of the combustible whatever the weather. On average 70m3 of shavings make it possible to provide heating for one week during the winter period. A centralized technical management system then organizes the remote supply of energy to the various buildings. It is the same for pellets. The only small disadvantage is the resulting ashes that have to be disposed of, even if they are at most the equivalent of a large dustbin.

The maison relais Niederkorn, the housekeeping school and the Woiwer school are heated with pellets, while the new Fousbann school and the central school in Differdange are heated with wood chips.