Heating and power plants consumed a total of 18.3 million m3 of solid wood fuels in 2015 in Finland, down by 2% on the previous year.
According to a luke.fi research, the main solid wood fuel used in the plants was forest chips, the consumption of which decreased by 3% year-on-year to 7.3 million cubic metres. The Finnish consumption fell by 9% in the combined heat and power production, but increased by 12% in the generation of heat. Together with the forest chips burned in small-scale housing, total consumption reached 8.0 million cubic metres.
“More than half, or 3.9 million cubic metres, of the forest chips consumed by the plants were manufactured from small-sized trees, that is pruned small-diameter stems and unpruned small-sized trees. The second most common source, 2.4 million cubic metres, was logging residues. The use of stumps as raw material for forest chips came to 0.8 million cubic metres,” says Senior Research Scientist Esa Ylitalo of Natural Resources Institute Finland.
Consumption targets getting out of reach
The target set in Finland’s National Forest Programme 2015 for the consumption of forest chips in 2015 was at 10–12 million cubic metres, meaning that the target was not met. The current National Energy and Climate Strategy has set the target for 2020 at around 13.5 million solid cubic metres.
Bark is the main by-product
Finnish plants consumed 1% less forest industry by-products and wood residues than in the previous year, a total of 10.1 million cubic metres. The main material used in burning was bark, accounting for almost 70% of by-product wood.
The consumption of solid wood fuels was highest in the Central Finland region, where most of the forest chips were also burned. Most of the by-product wood from the forest industries was burned in South Karelia.
Wood is the most significant energy source
According to preliminary data from Statistics Finland, wood fuels were the most significant energy source in Finland in 2015, accounting for a little over one quarter of the total energy consumption. Measured in terms energy content, the consumption of wood fuels amounted to 93 terawatt-hours (TWh), of which the solid wood fuels of heating and power plants covered 35 TWh, the combustion of black liquor 39 TWh, the small-scale combustion of wood 16 TWh and other wood fuels 2 TWh.
Source: Luke.fi
