PWE Heat and Power has been an SFR authorised trader since 2020. In that time, they have registered over 30,000 tonnes of olive stones (or olive pits) with SFR. This is imported from a number of olive producing countries including Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt.
The olive stone is typically shipped to Immingham or Grimsby ports and then transported to storage depots in North Yorkshire and Cumbria. From these hubs PWE distribute to around 40 customers with multi fuel boilers in the north of England and Border regions.
As a processing residue, olive stones are a highly sustainable fuel as the production process does not require any additional land. The fuel has a high calorific value, is free-flowing and fully compatible with many existing biomass boiler systems. It is also cheaper than wood pellets which made it an interesting alternative to consumers during the “cost-of-living crisis”.
In the last 12 months PWE has developed a new product called Med-C Mix which is a blend of olive stones and EN-Plus certified wood pellets.
It would be impossible for PWE to be able to trace all the olive stones back to individual olive groves as this would involve thousands of growers. As a result, SFR have provided an assisted application process in which bespoke Land Criteria Declarations (LDC) were produced. These show the extent of the olive resource in each country, the local yields, the average age of olive groves etc and relates this to the weight of the individual shipment. In all cases, the amount of land required to produce the olive stones is a fraction of 1% of the countries’ resources.
Each LCD proves beyond reasonable doubt that the process is sustainable and not leading to destruction of virgin habitats. It also provides the auditor with the proof required to rubber stamp this enterprise.
PWE’s activities has led SFR to look at its own system. The need for multiple allocations to lots of different customers has meant that we have overhauled our system in order to improve the user experience for PWEs end user clients.
For more information visit: pweheatandpower.com