The biomass market has witnessed one of its most challenging periods in the last twelve months as wood pellet prices fell sharply across the globe to record lows. Oversupply in the market coupled with weaker demand in Europe has been the catalyst for the bearish pricing that has affected pellet producers’ across North America and Europe.
However there are reasons to be optimistic as we look towards 2017 and beyond. Danish wood pellet demand is set to soar later this year with the conversion of Dong Energy’s Studstrup and Avedøre Power Plants to increase their annual wood pellet consumption to 1.8 million tonnes of which 1.2 million tonnes will be used at Avedøre and 600,000 tons at Studstrup. While in the Netherlands, the market has been boosted by the return of national subsidies that should see RWE’s Amer power plant return to action in 2017 followed by co-firing at Engie, Uniper and Vattenfall’s plants that could see an additional 3mn tonnes of wood pellet demand.
In the wood chip market, Scandinavia continues to lead the way in terms of demand via district heating and combined heat and power (CHP) projects. In Denmark, Dong and Hofor look set to add 2mn tonnes of chip demand by 2019 and in Sweden Fortum have started commissioning their new CHP plant in Stockholm that will add a further 300,000 tons of wood chip demand from Scandinavia.