The EU decision to use more than 20% renewable energy by 2020 resulted in the rapid development of production of wood pellets in Europe, Sweden and Germany. Industry experts expect a rapid increase in consumption of pellets in Denmark and Britain in the next 10 years.
Global financial crisis and the limitation of loans positively affected the development of biomass industry in some countries, thus the demand for pellets has increased, which, in turn led to construction of new factories.
the biggest development of the biomass industry was recorded in Europe, because of the decision to use more than 20% of renewable energy by 2010.
In fact, Sweden is the largest user of wood pellets, which uses 20% of the total of the pellets made from wood. In an attempt to meet the increasing demand on the market, the country produced about 1.6. million tones in 2008 and imported another 300,000 from other European countries and Canada. Wood industry professionals don’t see any signs of production stopping in this sector and predict an annual growth of 8-10% in the next years.
Europe currently owns 450 pellet producing factories and has plans to build more in the coming years. Professionals in the industry predict the largest use of biomass in the UK, Sweden and Germany, and investments in the energy sector, domestic and import growth.
Experts in the sector inform that the prices of wood pellets have had a tendency to increase during the past seven years. Sweden's prices were always higher than prices in Central Europe, but in 2009, the country has experienced the biggest drop in prices because of the similarity to prices in Germany and Australia. Industry experts expect an increase in wood fiber costs correlated with the increased operational costs, this causing an increase in pellet prices after crossing times of crisis.
Source: http://pellets-wood.com |
