Biomass producers eye stable residential demand

摘要

Stable and continuous growth in the biomass residential market will attract more industrial wood pellet producers, global forestry marketing firm Ekman vice-president of bio-energy Arnold Dale said at the European Pellet Conference in Wels,Austria,last week. The residential market is a more“genuine market”, Dale said,highlighting the politically driven nature of the industrial market.The EU's 2020 renewable energy directive and governmental subsidies drive demand for industrial pel lets.But subsidies are transient and“anything they give you today they can take away tomorrow”,Dale said. Low coal prices make it uneconomical to substitute woo pellets in the industrial market,without a subsidy in place. But in the premium market,growth is being driven primaril by the favourable economics of wood pellets over heating oil.