Biomass pellets is an emerging kind of renewable fuel to replace coal, gas and oil. They have become more and more important for many countries.
As reported by the European Union this year (2013), some European countries are main users of wood pellets in the EU. The following diagram shows the specific data.
| Main Pellet Consumers (1,000 MT) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calendar Year | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 |
| UK | - | - | - | 1,990 | 2,720 | 3,380 | 4,540 |
| Denmark | 993 | 1,200 | 1,400 | 1,720 | 2,350 | 2,400 | 2,500 |
| Netherlands | 705 | 912 | 912 | 913 | 1,290 | 1,710 | 2000 |
| Sweden | 1,715 | 1,850 | 1,920 | 2,280 | 1,880 | 1,700 | 650 |
| Germany | 600 | 900 | 1,050 | 1,200 | 1,400 | 1,600 | 1,600 |
| Belgium | 735 | 920 | 920 | 950 | 1,130 | 1,200 | 1,320 |
| Total | 6,028 | 7,021 | 9,000 | 11,400 | 13,000 | 14,300 | 16,000 |
From the diagram we can see that these 6 countries have an increasing demand for biomass pellets. In UK, Netherlands and Belgium, biomass pellets are mainly used by large scale power plants. In Denmark and Sweden, pellets are used by power plants as well as households or district heating. While in Germany, Austria, Italy and France, pellets are primarily utilized by private residential and industrial boilers for heating (more information on pellet industry). All these countries are gradually use biomass pellets to replace fossil fuels.
Despite their great demand for pellets, these EU nations are still lack of pellet production plants. Therefore, they have no other choice but to import from USA and Canada. Just in the 1st quarter of 2013, these two countries have had a 50% increase in exporting wood pellets to UK.
More export means more income. With the prices of oil, gas and coal continue increasing, their replacement, biomass pellets, will also have an increasing price. This is because more people are turning to use biomass pellets instead, and higher demand for the same supply will mean higher price. This indicates that investing in wood pellet production will bring great profit, since you only need to pay for the equipments and employees, not including waste biomass raw material.
Even in countries of Asia, Africa, America and Oceania, pellets have become a main kind of fuel.
Now the prices of gas and oil are still on the rise. And in fact this is good for wood pellet production industry. High gas and oil prices will generate greater demand for wood pellets. So investing into biomass pellets production will definitely boom in the future.
