Wood pellets ara clean, CO2-neutral and convenient fuel, mostly produced from sawdust and wood shavings, compressed under high pressure using no glue or other additives. They are cylindrical in shape and usually 6-10 mm in diameter and 10-30 mm in length. As a highly standardised and compressed fuel, pellets allow cost-efficient transportation of fuel and automatic operation of plants for heat and electricity production, from one-family homes to largescale power plants. With a rapidly growing share of the market, they are a key technology for increasing biomass utilisation in Europe and beyond. Pellets are also an excellent way of using local resources thus making a concrete contribution to environmental and climate change protection.

The European Union has set itself a number of policy objectives to increase the share of renewable energy sources in electricity and heat production and it is widely recognised that biomass has a strategic role to play in achieving these targets. Pellets are a key technology in making this happen, with several particular advantages. As a condensed fuel, transportation is cheaper and less cumbersome than for other biomass fuels.

The high degree of standardisation allows for extremely low-emission combustion, even in very small appliances. And wood pellets are a highly convenient fuel for end users: delivery by tank truck or in bags and aut The use of pellets for heat production in Europe is exploding and so is the market for producing and trading pellets. The Danish pellet market is the secondlargest in Europe and the largest importer of pellets today. FORCE Technology has been part of the development of the Danish pellet market for years and has thus great experience in all aspects of pellets, reaching from production technology, quality control to market assessments.
 

Sweden, together with USA and Canada, are the world’s largest producers of pellets with an annual production capacity exceeding 3,500,000 tonnes of wood pellets (about 16,5 TWh) in 2006. A second group of countries is composed of several EU Member States with a production ranging from 200,000 to 600,000 tonnes, including Austria, Germany, Italy, Estonia, Latvia, Russia, Poland and Denmark (Figure nr 1). The remaining countries produce much lower amounts.

Sweden is also the largest market so far, and trends show that Sweden will be still leading market in the short term. Other large wood pellets markets include mainly central European countries, such as Austria, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands,
Denmark and Belgium.



Policy as driver for pellet demand

Strong policy drivers in all regions investigated, but they differ by region. In Europe, concerns about climate change and targets to realize renewable electricity targets are a predominant driver, especially for large-scale co-firing. For small-scale heating applications, also the price advantage/competition with fuel oil plays an important role. This second driver is also the predominant one for North America, combined with a desire to diversify fuel supply. For Asia, the general need for (new) energy carriers and shifting from the heavily polluting energy technologies towards low carbon ones may be the most important drivers behind increasing demand for biomass pellets.

The prices in Sweden have generally been higher than in Central Europe, where prices plummeted in early 2007. Swedish pellet prices remained at record high levels of €250/ton (bulk volumes) through most of 2007 and 2008. It was not until the 4Q/08 when prices in Sweden, Germany and Austria started to converge again. With the increased trade of wood pellets within Europe, it is likely that pellet prices for large district heating facilities will equalize between different countries. Prices for pellets delivered to households, on the other hand, will be more influenced by regional balances between consumption and production of pellets, and by the costs of competing energy sources.

Wood fiber costs, which by far are the largest cost component in the production of wood pellets, are likely to decrease in 2009 in both Europe and North America as competition for wood chips and pulpwood from the pulp and wood-panel sectors is weakens.

Global wood fiber, pulpwood and sawlog market updates are included in the 50-page publication Wood Resource Quarterly. The report, established in 1988 and with readers in over 20 countries, tracks wood prices in most regions around the world and also includes regular updates of international timber, pulp, lumber and biomass markets.

 

Ранее производство древсеных пеллет выглядело, как исключительно инновационный, бизнес с высокими рисками. Первые заводы по производству древесной пеллеты из отходов деревообработки фактически являлись экспериментальными производствами и создавались на базе переделанных комбикормовых линий ОГМ, широко распространенных на всем постсоветском пространстве. Оборудование для производства древесных пеллет было старым и неприспособленным для гранулирования опилок. А задача переработки древесных отходов в пеллеты – совершенно новая для России и Украины. Собственники первых заводов по производству пеллет, несмотря на свою инициативу, не были готовы инвестировать крупные средства в развитие пеллетного бизнеса. В то же время производство древесных пеллет представлялось весьма интересным и перспективным бизнесом.