Fire and flame for biomass

Michael Schmidt had a colourful career before taking over the position of General Manager at Wollsdorf Leder, a company that has been family-run for generations. He worked in the field of marine propulsion and power plants from Canada to South America before specialising in sustainable energy solutions. Biomass technology, in particular, has fascinated and influenced him. He has done pioneering work to establish efficient and environmentally friendly heating solutions in Chile and Uruguay. In the interview, he talks about his experiences, challenges, and successes – and why he is so impressed by BINDER Energietechnik from Bärnbach, a company of the HERZ Group.

HERZ News: Mr Schmidt, you spent many years in Chile and Uruguay. How did that come about?

Michael Schmidt: In 1987 I emigrated to Canada, but I quickly got bored there. So I bought a VW bus and went to South America. I lived in the bus for 18 months, travelled the whole area and finally got stuck in Chile in 1990.

HERZ News: So Chile was a spontaneous decision. How did the sale of biomass plants come about?

Michael Schmidt: In Chile, a lot of heating was done with biomass, but under very precarious technical conditions and with enormous emissions. There was also a belief that biomass boilers could not provide the desired high outputs. I wanted to show that biomass can be converted very economically with lower emissions and so I founded my own company in Chile and imported BINDER boilers from Austria.

HERZ News: What challenges did you face in the process?

Michael Schmidt: The biggest challenge was getting customers to change their thinking. Our boilers were more expensive than the local models. Most people thought in the short term, preferring low investment costs to long-term savings. That's why we started by installing the boilers ourselves and selling the energy for the time being. This enabled us to show that it was cheaper and better than before. After that, the market began to open up.

HERZ News: How has the biomass market developed in Chile?

Michael Schmidt: It was difficult at the beginning. Most of the domestic boilers were hand-fed and had poor efficiency levels. The operators employed two or three workers just to fill the boiler. If they fell asleep while doing it at night, the boiler would go out (laughs). We introduced a new technology for Chile with modern, fully automatic low-emission boilers that work economically and in an environmentally friendly way. It was a very demanding business, but we succeeded.

HERZ News: Which project in Chile are you most proud of?

Michael Schmidt: We have completed many projects in Chile, from hotels to fitness centres. However, our most important showcase project was a local heating project in the middle of Santiago de Chile, two blocks from the Ministry of the Environment. In 2012, we installed a 3-megawatt hot water boiler from

BINDER, which is still in operation. 22 buildings with around 2,600 apartments are connected to it, which are supplied with heating and hot water. Whatever burns is used as fuel – from wood chips and pellets to olive stones and plum stones. When we realised the project, we could see astonished looks out of the window of the Ministry of the Environment (laughs).

HERZ News: I guess because they were really enthusiastic?

Michael Schmidt: Chile still has a major problem with air pollution. With this project, we were able to show that biomass can be used for heating in the city centre without causing any emissions problems. This was unheard of in Chile before.

HERZ News: What was the situation in Uruguay?

Michael Schmidt: In Uruguay, we implemented a process energy system for a large sawmill in 2016. A 9-megawatt steam boiler from BINDER is used for the wood drying process. Since then, the plant has been operating at full capacity every day. The remarkable thing about the plant is that the planned and unplanned outage hours are well under 240 hours a year. That's nothing at all, please. A boiler of this size that runs for years without problems in continuous operation is a rarity.

HERZ News: Why BINDER?

Michael Schmidt: I was also on the supervisory board of our family company Wollsdorf. This meant that I had to travel to Austria four times a year to attend the supervisory board meetings. BINDER was not far from our location, so I went there directly to take a look at the boilers. Everything worked well from the outset. Why should I change something that is running perfectly?

HERZ News: Which BINDER features have particularly impressed you?

Michael Schmidt: One of the biggest advantages of BINDER is, of course, the low failure rate. In addition, the BINDER boilers are optimised for container transport. We have even transported the 9-megawatt boiler in containers to Uruguay. Nobody can do that but Binder. Another major advantage is the pre-assembled design. The boilers are put together at the BINDER factory and then prepared for transport in a modular design. This gives me the certainty that no rework is required at the construction site. This saves time and prevents expensive problems at the construction site.

HERZ News: After all these years in South America, you are now back in Austria. Why?

Michael Schmidt: Chile has changed. There has been chaos there since 2019. It is no longer the country I knew. So I came back to Austria and work in our family business.

HERZ News: As far as I know, a large BINDER system is currently being produced for Wollsdorf. Will we see you again after commissioning for another interview?

Michael Schmidt: This will be an interesting showcase project. We will conduct a separate interview to show how versatile a biomass boiler can be, while keeping the investment affordable.

HERZ News: That sounds exciting. I'm looking forward to it. Thank you for the revealing insights into the world of South Americans.

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