This is the one package with a strict prerequisite: the offtake agreement comes first. Chip specification, moisture limit, contamination tolerance, tonnage, delivery point and transport responsibility together determine whether the correct processor is a chipper or a grinder, what feed capacity is needed, and whether the haulage distance is viable at all. None of it can be inferred from what the market generally accepts.
The failure mode is distinctive and unforgiving: an out-of-specification load is rejected rather than discounted. A fleet that produces the wrong product produces nothing saleable, and the capital is committed to a specification it cannot meet. Contractors who buy the processor and then look for material carry that risk in full.
The second structural feature is feed continuity. A high-capacity chipper or grinder only earns when material arrives without interruption, which makes the loader, the grapple and the extraction chain part of the purchase decision rather than details to resolve later. A 440 horsepower chipper waiting on an excavator bringing one tree at a time is very expensive idle capital.
Every fleet produces at the rate of its slowest element and pays for all of them. This is where that element usually sits in this package.
Each one has an answer specific to your sites. A default taken from someone else's operation is where imbalance starts.
The offtake specification decides. Clean, consistent chip for a boiler or panel plant calls for a chipper, which is intolerant of contamination. Mixed, dirty or variable material with contamination tolerance calls for a grinder, which produces a coarser, less uniform product. The comparison page sets out the wear and throughput trade-offs in detail.
Enough to keep the infeed supplied at the processor's working rate through a full shift, including truck changes. Under-fed capacity is the most common capital mistake in this package, and it is invisible in a specification comparison.
From the delivered cost per tonne at the actual distance and payload, not from a rule of thumb. Biomass is bulky and low in value per tonne, so a contract that works at 40 kilometres may not work at 120, regardless of how efficient the processing is.
Whatever sustains the feed rate for the material in question — feller buncher and skidders for whole stems, loaders and grapples for residue already at a landing. Matching this end to the processor is the difference between the rated throughput and the achieved one.
The package above assumes a typical case. These are the departures that change the configuration rather than just the rate.
Very few contractors start at the full configuration, and the ones who do are usually carrying more capital than their contracted work supports.
Phase 1
One chipper or grinder working material assembled and supplied by others.
Phase 2
Processor plus loader and grapple, with extraction sized to sustain feed through a shift.
Phase 3
Feller buncher, skidders, loaders, processor, and haulage owned or contracted to the offtake point.
The specification determines which machine is correct. Buying first means discovering afterwards whether your product is saleable, and that is not a risk that can be managed retrospectively.
A high-horsepower processor fed by a single excavator produces a fraction of its rating while consuming most of its cost. Feed capacity is part of the purchase, not an afterthought.
Biomass is sold delivered. A model that looks strong at the landing can be uneconomic by the time the truck reaches the plant, particularly on low-value hog fuel.
Blunt knives raise fuel per tonne, degrade product consistency and load the machine harder. The deferred maintenance cost arrives as fuel and specification failures rather than as a parts invoice.
Sits between harvesting and biomass markets — and starves without a properly engineered feed system.
The tolerant machine — for material that is dirty, mixed, contaminated, irregular or stump-heavy.
Highest-throughput felling in the full-tree system — cut, accumulate, bunch, repeat.
Drags stems to the landing — the workhorse of full-tree and tree-length systems.
Geometry beats size — the grapple should be selected according to material flow.