PETRIKOV DISTRICT, 24 May (BelTA) – Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko has given an instruction to convert more boiler houses to using wood pellets as fuel in small towns.
The president was informed that 66% of 11,000 boiler houses throughout the country (except for those that are run by the Belenergo energy provider) have already been converted to work on local fuels. The share of local fuels exceeds 70% in 40 districts and is approaching 100% in some of them.
Since 2010, in line with state programs, 350 facilities powered by natural gas have been converted to local fuels. That said, they still have the technical possibility to use natural gas.
The use of local fuels, repair and upgrade of boiler houses allows reducing gas consumption and makes heat generation cheaper.
The amount of local fuels consumed during the year is equivalent to 3 billion cubic meters of natural gas. Pellets currently account for about 1%, but their share is consistently growing. The other types of local fuels are firewood, wood chips and peat fuel.
Aleksandr Lukashenko asked about the advantages of pellets. He was told that they are compact, environmentally friendly, produce less ash and the production process can be fully automated. People living in standalone homes need to load fuel just once a week and can manage the process using a mobile phone.
The president gave an instruction to open such boiler houses in small settlements: “We need to start doing this in agro-towns during this five-year period. We need to try. People will move to agro-towns anyway. No one will stay in villages, even those villages that used to be centers of collective farms. This equipment is powerful. People will live in communities like Lyaskovichi. Therefore, agro-towns are our number one priority.”
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