Pellets so hot

Pellets – so hot
Even the most skeptical consumer and politicians is now getting interested. Is it really possible, can Bioenergy, especially pellets, be the solution for large scale as well as small scale energy consumers, like oil?
And - the answer is yes. Pellets is now proven to be a good alternative in very different markets.
We have the small scale user, the dominating customer in North America and central Europe.
The major quantities of pellets are however today used in larger units like in estates and middle range heating centrals and in a fast increasing numbers of industries, district heating and power plants.

Pellets enough?
Is some specific regions we can notice a lack of sawdust, the dominating surplus raw material. Of course this surplus will end. But there are still large quantities around the world that is not used at all.
A broader range of raw material will therefore enter the market.
 First to be used is the bark and similar residues that falls in the sawmills and pulp industries.
Next assortment is stem wood and harvested whole trees in large scale operations.
We have huge potentials of unused trees standing in the forests today.
We have also found out that there is a fast growing interest for agro-pellets. Also here there are different options. Residues from the food industry, straw from the fields or new energy crops.

Designed pellets will come
The market will be more divided. There is no need to buy a more expensive fuel than necessarily.
Producers will therefore put more effort in designing pellets in optimized way.
This will be an important issue to find well working standards for.

Production regions
We do not have a world wide integrated pellets market, but for large scale users and large scale importers the fuel businesses are global.

Europe north
Volume king of pellets use and production is Sweden; Denmark is not so far behind. Finland, Estonia, Latvia are also big producers. In Europe-north we also find the three largest market suppliers in the business; Vapo from Finland, SBE from Sweden and BBG from Latvia.
And what about Russia? They are coming, but they have still problems to solve regarding logistics.

Central Europe
Austria and Germany has become big in small scale use of pellets. The equipment producers are also high class and fast growing. Countries like Czech, Slovakia, Slovenian, France and Switzerland are increasing their production and the use.

Western Europe
Here we have a waked up tiger in consumption. The coal and gas crisis has hit hard.

Europe south
Italy is the regional pellets king. Lot’s of small production units and a top class industry for equipment and focus also in agro pellets.

Eastern Europe,
Asia, South America,
Africa, Australia
Lots of possibilities not so much done, but what a potential!!
It will take time to get the smooth operation. Japan has huge consumption, huge forests and almost no pellets for example and China has just started their first program for bioenergy. Brazil we know have skills etc etc.

North America
Finally Canada and United states. Pellets are here used in specific regions and mostly in small towns in rural areas. But we do also have some very large suppliers that deliver by ship to Western Europe.