Australian Forests & Timber News, August 2012 – 27
KILNs
A decade on for the solar gas kilns I
T IS now 10 years since Bellingen-based Solar Dryers Australia (SDA) commissioned the first two of its solar hot water kilns at Kempsey for Macleay River Hardwoods. This was quickly followed by another four kilns, this time for Kempsey Timbers (AST). In the following years, both of those companies added more kilns and there are now a total of 17 SDA kilns, of 50 and 75 m3 capacity in the shire. This puts Kempsey in the unique position of being the largest solar timber drying centre in the world and SDA,
at nearby Bellingen, is the only manufacturer worldwide of this type of kiln. SDA has now built approx 100 solar hot water kilns in ranging in sizes from 10 m3 to 100 m3. These kilns are in all states of Australia, Africa, USA, and Solomon Islands, with the latest being a 300 m3 installation in PNG. Operating costs are the big feature of these kilns, with savings of 70-80% on heating costs – amounting to many thousand of dollars annually for larger companies. Another 30 of the earlier model
solar kilns are still working well, and SDA has more recently produced Heat Treatment units for export packaging, and dryers for a number of other products. In the past couple of years Bruce Bishop has developed a full SCADA control system for SDA’s various types of dryer.
Combined with In Kiln Weight Stations, the system allows total control over any drying process, and gives a continuous readout of moisture content. Quality Assurance needs are met by full reporting and data logging, and remote log in allows control from anywhere in the
world with internet access. The PNG installation uses this system and the kilns were actually run from SDA’s Bellingen office for the first six months ! Current areas of research for SDA are drying of various nuts, coffee and heating of greenhouses.
Solar/Gas Kilns
www.solardry.com.au Bellingen NSW (02) 6655 2100
• Unique concept of solar/gas kilns • Australian designed & built • The most energy efficient kilns available • Supplied fully assembled or in kit form • Kilns from 10m3 to 100m3 • Also, heat treatment units for ISPM 15