Knowledge base · Comparison

How much does heating a frosty night cost?

The operating cost of the four heat-producing frost-protection fuels — diesel, propane, wood pellet and frost candle — normalised to the same delivered heat. So you can see clearly which option costs what on a cold night.

On a frosty night, heating has to deliver roughly 1.2 MW of heat per hectare. The first table shows the specific heat cost of four common fuels (HUF/kWh); the second shows what that adds up to per hectare over an 8-hour night.

Specific cost

What does 1 kWh of heat cost?

Fuel	Unit price	Specific energy	Cost (HUF/kWh)
Wood pellet	145 HUF/kg	4.8 kWh/kg	~30
Diesel	600 HUF/litre	10.0 kWh/litre	~60
Propane	1,000 HUF/kg	12.8 kWh/kg	~78
Frost candle (bucket, 4.5 kg)	6,000 HUF/pc	57.5 kWh/pc	~104

Cost per hectare per night

One night on one hectare

1.2 MW/ha × 8 hours = 9,600 kWh of delivered heat

Fuel	Fuel needed / ha	Cost per night / ha
Wood pellet	~2.0 tonnes	~290,000 HUF
Diesel	~960 litres	~576,000 HUF
Propane	~750 kg	~751,000 HUF
Frost candle	~167 pcs (bucket)	~1,000,000 HUF

A few thoughts

What do the numbers say?

Pellet is a cost-efficient controllable heat source: for the same heat, diesel costs about 2×, propane about 2.6×, and the bucket candle about 3.5× as much.
In this article we only looked at the fuel cost of producing heat: depending on the frost-protection technology, other costs have to be taken into account as well — e.g. the cost of tractors and other support equipment, and of the operating staff. With the Vormair these are favourable: it is fully automatic and can simply be made ready during the day, so one person can supervise and operate several units.
Pellet can be stocked up in advance: a domestic solid fuel that can be bought in bulk and stored before the season, so heating costs are predictable — not dependent on the daily fuel price on the frost night. Diesel and propane prices, by contrast, are tied directly to the global oil and gas markets.

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Predictable heat, affordable nights

The Vormair TG-650 pellet-fired heat generator works as the heat source for the wind machine — automatic, controllable, and with the lowest specific heat cost.

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