ÖkoFEN has developed an off-grid house in cooperation with Fronius. The combination of a pellet boiler with integrated Stirling engine, PV and energy storage technologies makes it possible to generate on-site 100 % of the home’s required heat and electricity. A management system records and processes all relevant data for heat and power generation.

ÖkoFEN presents the Pellematic Air, a forced hot air pellet heating system. Originally designed for the US market, especially for single-family houses, it can also be used where no hydraulic heating system is present, e.g. for heating construction sites, storage halls, tents or stables, as well as for drying applications such as cellars or spray booths.

The Pellematic e-max, an electricity-generating pellet heating system for multi-family houses and commercial buildings, entered the pilot phase. The pilot installation will permit gaining experience outside of the company's own test lab and help further product development towards series production. The 55 kW boiler supplies heat to a single-family home in Bruges while generating up to 4.5 kW of electricity.
ÖkoFEN received the Golden Prize for Wood Central Heating Systems at the "Salon bois energie" in France.

The Condens pellet boiler from ÖkoFEN features a built-in condensing technology without external heat exchanger, compact design (72 cm x 73 cm) and is suitable for higher return flow temperatures. This new integrated design of condensing technology eliminates the need for a buffer tank, making it technically much easier to handle.

ÖkoFEN opened its new French headquarters near Albertville. With the relocation to Saint Baldoph, ÖkoFEN France doubles its warehouse space to 1,700 m². This allows an improvement of services for installation partners and reduces the delivery time by half. In addition to the large warehouse space, the new location offers a total of 600 m² of office, training and exhibition rooms.

The new heating system controller Pelletronic Touch, which was unveiled at the Energiesparmesse in Wels/Upper Austria, will become available in summer 2014. The new software analyses online weather data and regulates the boiler and solar thermal systems according to the forecasted solar radiation. Moreover, the new myPelletronic App summarises all functions with a simple, user-friendly touch-screen interface.

The OEC and four biomass boiler manufacturers from the Oekoenergie-Cluster (Fröling, Hargassner, ÖkoFEN and Windhager) were present at the important conference/expo "North East Biomass Heating Expo" in Portland/Maine. They presented their products at the expo and are interested in the New England market with its significant potential for modern automatic biomass heating systems. Christiane Egger from the OEC team was invited as a keynote speaker for the conference.

Field tests are currently being conducted for 10 installations of ÖkoFEN’s electricity-producing pellet boiler with Stirling engine. One of these is in an organic nursery. The 400 m² warehouse with floor heating is now heated with a 14 kW pellet-boiler system. In addition, a 20 m² solar thermal system and a 2,600 litre storage tank are integrated into the heating system.

ÖkoFEN received the innovation award "Energie Genie 2013" for the electricity-generating pellet boiler Pellematic Smart_e. The pellet boiler with a pellet condensing module and the stirling engine are integrated into a 600-litre storage. The system requires only 1.5 m² of space and has 14 kW thermal and 1 kW electrical power.

In the village Farra d'Alpago with a population of about 3,000 in Northern Italy, the public buildings (town hall, two schools, kindergarten, sports hall) are heated by a completely prefabricated district heating plant with eight pellet heating systems in two wooden containers. The local heat supply has an own container for the big buffer storages as well as a solar transfer station and saves more than 100 tons of CO2 and 46,000 Euro heating costs.

ÖkoFEN introduced their electricity-generating pellet boiler for serial production. The new power-heat cogenerator delivers 1kW electricity by running a stirling engine to cover most of the electricity demand of a household. The stirling engine does not require additional maintenance, it is long-lasting and has low noise and emission levels when operated with biomass.

Since 2010, ÖkoFEN is present in North America and successful there: in 2010 and 2011 more than 200 pellet boilers were installed. Under the name of AutoPellet, ÖkoFEN partner Maine Energy Systems (MESys) distributes the pellet boilers in America. ÖkoEN offers training seminars for the North American installers – more than 500 installers were already trained locally.

ÖkoFEN is busily working on the development of an electricity-generating pellet boiler for private homes for serial production. The small CHP plant works with a stirling engine integrated in the pellet heating system. It delivers 1 kW of electrical energy and can cover the majority of the daily electricity consumption in a household. The stirling engine has low noise and emission levels and is CO2-neutral when operated with biomass.

ÖkoFEN has further improved the heat exchanger of its condensing boiler. By using carbon (graphite), heat conduction characteristics were improved. The graphite has a dirt-resistant surface and has a higher resistance to condensates which include sulfur and chlorine.

• OkoFEN is now able to offer fully certified and ASME accredited pellet boilers in North America.
• Since the market entry in autumn 2009, more than 120 installers were trained by the US partner Maine Energy Systems on how to install and maintain an OkoFEN boiler correctly.
• Some dozens of projects were already realised in New England und Pennsylvania.
• OkoFEN News: http://www.oekofen-usa.com/en-us/news/news.html

Several of the OEC partners are currently starting their market activities in the United States, some of them have already formed partnerships with US companies or founded subsidiaries:

• ÖkoFEN (pellet boilers) www.okofen-usa.com,
  US partner Northeast: Maine Energy Systems www.maineenergysystems.com
• Fröling (biomass boilers),
  US partner: BioHEAT USA www.woodboilers.com
• Solarfocus (biomass boilers),
  US partner: WoodMaster www.woodmaster.com
• Guntamatic (biomass boilers)
• SOLution Solartechnik (solar thermal panels)
• Sun Master Energiesysteme (solar thermal panels)
• GASOKOL (solar thermal panels)
• Energiewerkstatt (wind energy solutions), subsidiary EWS Consulting Corp., USA
  www.ews-consulting.com

The new pellet boiler "Pellematic smart" from the company ÖkoFEN combines a stratified storage tank, a condensing pellet boiler module and all necessary hydraulics in one system. The new product is especially suitable for lowest energy and passive homes, as it has a capacity of only 3.9 kW, the space needed is 1.5 m². The innovative condensing boiler technology ensures very high efficiency and very low emissions. The boiler can be fed automatically or manually.