ARGE HOLZGAS

I was around 3 or 4 years old when I was infected by the wood gas virus. My neighbour had got an old Hanomag between 1943 - 47 which was converted from running on diesel to be fed with wood gas. It was handed to farmers for hard work or as a driving machine for harvesting and so on. It was the time of world war II.
The truck was reconverted to running on diesel again and still worked for many years. But I could not be totally cured from the virus. Late at night, after our regular’s table in September 2004, the epidemic broke out again and I infected also one of my friends.
After research work of more than one year and after a construction time of 2 ½ years the wood gas plant is located in my garage, ready for operation.

As an organic farmer I am strongly interested in producing energy with short ways of transportation and regional value added. Everyday I am confronted with nature and the destructive results of our behavior. The steady increase of energy costs, the ruinous exploitation of the environement and the idea of the decrease of fossil energy were already years ago the trigger for my attempt to obtain my own energy sources.
In my forest a lot of waste wood results from thinning the forest; only a part of it can be sold as firewood. The question was: how can I use the unsalable waste wood of my forestry in an optimal way? Since there were already many efforts of likeminded people in Austria and Germany for revitalising this since decades well known wood gas technology, Johann Wolfmair and I made a lot of information trips for constructing a plant by ourselves at last.
Our object was: constructing a plant working completely automatically and whose equipment is in accordance with the latest technological standards. On the way there we had to overcome some stumbling blocs. But the efforts paid off. The plant installed with Johann Wolfmair meets our conception, although there are always some little improvements to be made.
My plant in construction will supply my house with heat and electricity and in a further step of development it will be used for drying hey bales, wood chips and cereal.

We are two organic farmers of the very beginning. Our motivation for going alternative ways in energy supply was our desire for getting energy self-sufficient and on the other hand putting the energy field on an ecologically worthwile track.
At first we thought about photovoltaic.
The massive decrease of fundings in this field in 2004 has compelled us to search for other possibilities of producing energy. The idea of producing wood gas was created, since this technology was already used in World War II.
Furthermore, plenty of wood is avilable in our region and the cogeneration plant produces 2/3 heat. With this we can heat our home and in summer time we run a hey ventilation for drying hey.
The elecrtricity generated (about 1/3 of the energy) is fed to the electric grid. Here we are still waiting for the governmental approval as an green electricity cogeneration plant. Together with our partners, Johann Wolfmair and Josef Lackner, this project was developed, whereas the fundamental research and development was done by the two men. Now, we are finishing the installation of four plants on the respective farms and setting them in operation.
We are convinced that the operation of cogeneration wood gas plants can be very efficient, even if they are small and with a performance of approximately 20 KW. This is founded on the fact that mechanic energy and residual heat are ideally used.

Already during my primary school ages I was fascinated by electrics and electronics. Furthermore there has been already the ambition to become energy-technical autonomic as far as possible. So the dream of an own electric power plant was born. Due to the absence of a suitable brook or river the realisation of a hydropower plant was impossible. The only possibility left was to build up a caloric power plant.
Wood should be the primary energy carrier, because this resource is sufficient available in the own forest. To increase overall efficiency, the residue heat produced by this caloric plant should be used for heating the own house. To reach maximum comfort and efficiency another request was that the plant should operate full-automated.
I compared different possible technologies and realised that woodgas technology, developed during the interwar years for driving cars and trucks, offers good conditions for the efficient operation of a small caloric power plant.
At the end of 2004 I met somebody who has just implemented the same idea based on woodgas – but not automated. I realized that, if I really wanted to build a woodgas power plant, it had to happen now, to get into the more attractive tariff regulation of the Austrian green electricity law at that time. At the end of December I had the essential governmental permissions, constructing and tinkering started from 2005.
We had no central heating, so this had to be constructed first, and also the rooms in the farm building had to be adapted. Despite adverse circumstances, thanks to the aid of my wife, my parents and some friends, I managed to connect the plant to the electric grid in June 2006. During Winter 2006/07 our house could be heated the first time without severe breakdowns. Improvements concerning easier maintenance, steady operation and efficiency followed. Over 5000 hours of operation claim that woodgas technology is simple, controllable and technically mature, and offers a good possibility to operate small cogeneration power plants with high efficiency.