According to recently published AEBIOM report, in 2015, wood pellet consumption in the EU reached 20,3 million tonnes which represented 6 % of total solid biomass used in Europe. Not suprisingly due to ambitious EU renewable targets, pellet consumption has increased in the EU-28, while in other parts of the world has stagnated or even decreased.

The EU as the world’s largest wood pellet market

In addition, the EU produced 14,1 million tonnes of pellets, what allowed it to cover 70% of its own demand. Therefore, the majority of wood pellet demand in the EU is covered by its own domestic production, while the rest comes from outside EU, mainly from North America.

A rise in US forestland thanks to Europe

Eriv Vial, the President of European Pellet Council, said:

“I believe the pellet sector will have to address 4 key issues:

• The first issue is technical, requiring to further pursue improvement of efficiency and quality in pellet production, of logistics and of heating appliance efficiency and technologies. This will not only create fewer emissions, but allow for extended ranges, giving consumers the convenience of smaller appliances.
• Secondly, from a market standpoint, we must reinforce our actions in our current markets but also target underestimated markets such as the medium scale to extend pellet market’s share.
• Thirdly, we have to realise the necessity of investing in efficient, fresh communication strategies that not only influence public perception, but gain visibility to current and possible pellet users in order to grow the sales in the pellet sector.
• Lastly, from a political point, the past several months have seen large incentives from national governments showing their limits while in the meantime, uncertainty in ongoing debates at EU level on bioenergy future raised new questions. Advocating pellets benefits towards national and EU policy makers is key while working on the development of public support which could provide stable and long term vision is essential.”

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Between 2014 and 2015 the pellet production increased by 4.7% , in order to reach a level of 20.2 million tonnes in 2015. Germany is the biggest producer of wood pellets producing 2 million tonnes (mt) followed by Sweden (1.7 mt), Latvia (1.5mt), Estonia (1.3mt) and Austria (1.0).

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Wood pellet consumption was increasing faster than production

According to AEBIOM, EU pellet consumption increased by 7.8% between 2014 and 2015, in order to reach a level of 20.3 million tonnes in 2015. Most of the pellets were consumed for heat production (almost 64%).  The remaining 36 % of wood pellets were used for power production. Among countries that consumed the most pellets were United Kingdom, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Germany or Belgium.

Source: You can either download AEBIOM Key Findings Report 2016 for free, or purchase whole report under following link: AEBIOM Statistical Report 2016

Main photo: Rafal Chudy