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Interview: Head of the Pellet Association on exploding costs and the opportunities for wood pellets - are they the future?

2022-11-23T08:07:41.911Z


Interview: Head of the Pellet Association on exploding costs and the opportunities for wood pellets - are they the future? Created: 2022-11-23 09:02 By: Matthew Schneider The prices for wood pellets also exploded briefly in autumn. © IMAGO / Shotshop / Antonio Gravante Pellet association boss Martin Bentele speaks in an interview with Merkur about the exploding costs of wood pellets, fine dust


Interview: Head of the Pellet Association on exploding costs and the opportunities for wood pellets - are they the future?

Created: 2022-11-23 09:02

By: Matthew Schneider

The prices for wood pellets also exploded briefly in autumn.

© IMAGO / Shotshop / Antonio Gravante

Pellet association boss Martin Bentele speaks in an interview with Merkur about the exploding costs of wood pellets, fine dust emissions and the boost for the heat transition.

Munich - Gas is expensive because supplier countries like the USA and Qatar demand horrendous sums for it.

But even wood pellets from domestic production have more than doubled in price.

Martin Bentele, Managing Director of the German Energy Wood and Pellet Association, explains why in an interview.

Mr. Bentele, recently wood pellets cost less than 300 euros per tonne, in October it was over 800. Does wood now also come from Russia?

No, Germany will remain self-sufficient.

But as a result of the energy crisis – i.e. above all the high gas prices – the pellet industry was literally overwhelmed by the high demand.

However, special heaters are needed for pellets – they can't have been built on a large scale in such a short time.

Only in part.

For the most part, however, we were dealing with pellet users who stocked up on a large scale.

These are mechanisms similar to those we saw on the gas and electricity wholesale markets in the summer.

Across Europe, however, electricity prices were so high that it was worthwhile for power plant operators outside Germany to generate electricity from pellets.

Where do pellets come from - and what determines their price if it is not the fossil competition?

In the last ten years, the price of pellets has remained stable, i.e. it has even fallen with a loss of purchasing power, while oil has become 30 percent more expensive.

Pellets are made from sawdust, i.e. waste from sawmills.

About 40 percent of a tree ends up like this for technical reasons.

The chips are dried and pressed under pressure.

Because the waste heat from the machines is usually used for drying, we don't have to do any additional work.

This has made the dumping prices of recent years possible.

So it depends a lot on how expensive the lumber is.

Because the more expensive it is, the more the mills saw - and the cheaper the pellets are.

Frequent monopoly position in gas and oil - and what about pellets?

The high prices for gas and oil have a lot to do with monopolies.

How about the pellets?

We have around 50 plants here that produce pellets, most of them in Bavaria.

This ensures a functioning market: Prices have now fallen back to just over 500 euros.

That's because people have stocked up now and there's virtually no demand.

Normally the prices increase towards winter.

Renewable, powerful, regionally produced - pellets work perfectly.

In Berlin, however, the focus is on fine dust emissions.

In this discussion, all wood furnaces are wrongly lumped together: Yes, a lot of fine dust can occur with wood-burning stoves.

But pellet heating systems were developed precisely to emit only 20 grams of fine dust - or less - per cubic meter of air.

Incidentally, the chimney sweeper also has to measure this for heaters - not for wood-burning stoves, it is enough to buy a specific model.

In addition, the owner has no possibility of heating incorrectly with pellet furnaces because they run fully automatically.

That's why I have a clear conscience when it comes to particulate matter - and I would like more differentiation.

The trend is towards electric heating.

What place will pellet heating systems have in 2040?

More than half of our electricity currently comes from fossil power plants.

If we want to implement the energy transition quickly and affordably, we have to rely on wood heating.

This applies above all to poorly insulated buildings from the 1970s, mostly heated with oil - many of which are in Bavaria: You cannot operate them sensibly with a heat pump.

And the residents of old houses do not always have the necessary money for a fundamental energetic renovation.

Leaving them out is the wrong approach.

Head of the Pellet Association on the impetus for the heat transition

But pellet heating systems are also expensive.

Are they a purchase for the climate or also for the wallet?

Pellet heating systems are expensive because they burn wood almost without leaving any residue.

This requires the most modern technology and it is simply more expensive.

But: If you replace an old oil heating system, you can currently get up to 35 percent funding.

This also makes them competitive with gas heaters.

So are we on the right track?

Partly.

It is important that the relevant decision-makers understand it as a fundamental difference to split logs.

Because when we see that pellets only have a very low level of fine dust emissions, we can also talk about higher subsidy rates so that less financially strong households can also convert.

Because in the long run we will continue to have a certain distance to oil and gas prices.

It's worth it for the owner.

With that we could definitely double the proportion of pellets in the heating systems.

In the end, does wood have to be imported from Siberia?

So far we have always been a net exporter, and that should remain the case for a while.

But sustainable management is also practiced in the forests of Central and Northern Europe.

In principle, it makes sense to produce as regionally as possible, also for cost reasons.

Pellets from Canada would certainly not be optimal - but still better than gas from there.

Interview: Matthew Schneider

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-11-23

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