Determination of the exergy of woody biomass is the first step to evaluate and study the material characteristics, transfer processes, and utilization systems of woody biomass from exergy aspect. This study supplies an expeditious methodology for estimating the exergy of woody biomass based on studying the LHVs (lower heating values), HHVs (higher heating values), and exergy values of sixty-four woody biomass. The results obtained from this study show that the higher LHV and HHV the woody biomass has, the higher exergy it has. A positive linear relationship between the exergy value and LHV with relative errors of -2.78% to 1.98% and a positive linear relationship between the exergy value and HHV with relative errors of -4.80% to 4.80% are obtained. These two relationships can be used to achieve an expeditious estimation of the exergy of woody biomass for engineering purposes. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.