What happens to fuel and CO2 when a wood-fired brass annealing furnace becomes an electric bogie furnace?
Fossil CO2 goes up, not down. BEE's Jagadhri report swaps 221.1 t of wood a year for 120,000 kWh in a 60 kW bogie furnace and claims 265 t CO2 saved, but wood CO2 is biogenic. The power adds about 81 t on today's grid. Cost Rs 9.25 lakh, payback 2.03 years.
The furnaces compared
- Wood fired: brick built, 4,000 kg of brass a batch at about 600 C for 10 hours, 737 kg of wood a batch. Efficiency 7 to 12% across audited units, 11% in this one.
- Electric bogie: 60 kW, ceramic fibre lined, fan circulated, 4,000 kg a batch in 8 hours on 400 kWh.
- Per tonne annealed: 184 kg of wood against 100 kWh.
- One batch a day, 300 days: 1,200 t a year, 221.1 t of wood or 120,000 kWh.
The money
- Wood: 737 kg x Rs 4.5 = Rs 3,316 a batch. Power: 400 kWh x Rs 4.5 = Rs 1,800.
- Saving Rs 1,516 a batch, Rs 379 a tonne, Rs 4.55 lakh a year.
- Cost: Rs 8.75 lakh furnace, Rs 0.50 lakh civil work and cabling: Rs 9.25 lakh. Payback 2.03 years at 2010 prices.
- Also expected: less scale on the brass, because the old furnaces overshoot temperature.
Why the report's 265 t is the wrong sign
The report counts the wood as 362.6 t of CO2, subtracts 97.2 t for the power, and calls the difference a cut. Under the GHG Protocol, CO2 from burning wood is biogenic and reported on a separate line, outside Scope 1. Removing it changes nothing in your scopes except the wood fire's small methane and nitrous oxide. The 120,000 kWh is new Scope 2. On grid power your fossil footprint rises; it falls only if the power comes from your own solar or a renewable supply you can document.
Ask the supplier one thing first
The specification gives a maximum working temperature of 600 C and describes the design as suited to non-ferrous annealing up to 550 C, while the report says Jagadhri anneals brass at 600 to 650 C. Get the temperature your alloy needs written into the quote, with a guarantee on batch time at that temperature.
One furnace, one year
- Power added: 120,000 kWh x 0.675 = +81.0 t CO2, Scope 2
- Wood fire methane and nitrous oxide removed: about 5.6 t CO2e, Scope 1
- Net Scope 1 and 2: up about 75 t CO2e
- Biogenic CO2 no longer emitted: about 332 t, reported separately
Wood at 3,200 kcal a kg from the report: 221.1 t is 2.96 TJ. IPCC 2006 defaults of 112,000 kg CO2, 30 kg methane and 4 kg nitrous oxide per TJ, AR5 warming potentials 28 and 265; grid at CEA's FY 2025-26 factor. Estimates.
What Senseible does here
Senseible reads your electricity bills into monthly records with CO2 by the CEA factor for the bill's year, so the new Scope 2 shows from the first bill. It has no wood factor: keep wood tonnes on their own biogenic line, worked as above.
- Your MSME carbon number
- Jagadhri brass and aluminium cluster
- Annealing furnace wood gasifier: saving
- LPG radiation annealing furnace
Sources: BEE, Detailed project report: bogie brass annealing furnace (60 kW), Jagadhri brass and aluminium cluster (2010, SAMEEEKSHA), GHG Protocol Corporate Standard, IPCC 2006 Guidelines, Volume 2 Energy, Table 2.3, CEA CO2 Baseline Database, version 22.0
Last reviewed 2026-11-01. Report figures are from a BEE SME programme project report; costs and paybacks are at 2010 prices. Check today's wood and power prices.