Most wood-fired combustion systems can burn solid fuels with properties similar to wood without modification. It is not unusual to find biomass power plants burning forest and sawmill residues along with a mixture of agricultural resides, and urban woody waste. Burning other solid fuels such as coal is much more of a challenge. Coal-fired power plants can be modified to co-fire with wood (up to 15 percent wood by weight) and co-firing a wood-fired unit with a small amount of coal can be done if the unit was designed properly. However a complete conversion would be difficult because coal-fired power plants and wood-fired plants have very different material handling, combustion chamber and boiler design, and emission control requirements. The biggest challenges would be in modifying the boiler and re-designing the emission control systems to remove the greater amounts of SOx and NOx that coal produces. A complete conversion of a wood-fired power plant to a coal-fired powerplant would be technically feasible but it is doubtful it would ever be a wise economic decision and certainly not a wise environmental decision. Converting a wood-fired system to a coal-fired system would eliminate all the advantages inherent in producing renewable energy.

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