Burning Pelletized Grass in a Pellet Stove

Dec 7, 2007- Wise Heat

Photo courtesy University of Illinois, 2006.

There has yet to be a serious attempt by pellet stove manufacturers to design stoves better adapted to high ash fuels such as pelletized grass.

The advantages of burning grass over wood pellets would be tremendous, especially in rural locations where harvesting grass and possibly pelletizing it locally, without added transportation costs, could be readily done.

The renewability of grass is much faster and a more environmentally friendly fuel source than the the renewability of trees and forests. Finding a way to process grasses into pelletized fuel would also be a cost effective alternative to burning wood pellets.

There is ongoing research into the growabilty of miscanthus and its heating potential at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Check out the miscanthus research home heating project where they’re heating a house with corn and pelletized switchgrass and miscanthus.

Researchers at Cornell University have determined that the Bixby Energy Maxfire corn stove, Harman corn stove, and Country Flame corn stove have successfully burned pelletized grass, pointing out, though, that these stoves aren’t designed for burning grass pellets.