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Wood-based energy
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| Total energy production from wood as percent of the total
national primary energy consumption. |
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| Total energy consumption and consumption of wood-based fuels,
1970–2010.
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The obejctive of this indicator is to measure the relative importance
of wood in compare with other sources of energy. Wood
is one of the major sources of renewable energy. Wood’s importance
is increasing especially across Europe due to the EU commitments
and decisions on the increase of the share of renewable
energy from the total energy consumption in EU-27.
At European level 2007 wood energy contributed 3,7% of the
final energy consumed. In Finland 2010, wood-based fuels accounted
for 312 petajoule (PJ) of energy production in Finland,
or 22% of Finland’s total energy consumption. The use of woodbased
fuels has increased in Finland since the 1990s. Most forest
industry installations are self-sufficient in terms of energy, as they can use all wood waste and waste liquors for energy
production.
Wood-based fuels are waste liquors and other byproducts of
the forest industry (tall oil and birch oil, soft soap, methanol,
biosludge, paper), forest chips, industrial chips, sawdust, bark,
recycled wood, pellets, briquettes and fuelwood. Most forest
industry installations are self-suffi- cient in terms of energy as
they can utilise all woody waste and waste liquors for energy
production.
The theoretical biomass potential from the European forests in
2010 is nearly 1.3 billion m3 including bark. Approximately half
of the potential is made up of stemwood and the rest consists
of logging residues, stumps and woody biomass from early thinnings
in young forests. The potential is, however, reduced to
about 750 million m3 due to various environmental, technical
and social constraints. The constraints affect especially residues,
stumps and biomass from early thinnings. The use of wooden
biomass from forests for energy applications in Europe was in
2009 about 720 million m3 consisting mainly (over 85%) from
stemwood.
In Finland the use of wooden biomass from forests as logging
residues, branches, small-sized timber and stumps was in 2010
about 7 million m3. Over 90% of the biomass consist of smallsized
trees and logging residues. The sustainable potential on
wooden biomass from forests is estimated to be about 15 million
m3 per year. |
