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Archive:Wood as a source of energy

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This article is part of a set of statistical articles based on the Eurostat online publication "Agriculture, forestry and fishery statistics". It presents statistics on forestry and logging in the European Union (EU).

The European Union (EU) accounts for approximately 5 % of the world’s forests and contrary to what is happening in many other parts of the world, the forested area of the EU is slowly increasing. Ecologically, the forests of the EU belong to many different bio-geographical regions and have adapted to a variety of natural conditions, ranging from bogs to steppes and from lowland to alpine forests. Socioeconomically, they vary from small family holdings to state forests or to large estates owned by companies.

Table 1: Production and trade in wood pellets, 2010 and 2014
(1 000 tonnes)
Source: Eurostat (for_basic)
Figure 1: Gross inland consumption of renewable energy, EU-28, 2005 and 2014
(1 000 tonnes of oil equivalent)
Source: Eurostat (nrg_107a))
Figure 2: Wood as a source of energy, 2014
(% share of wood and wood products in gross inland energy consumption, in TOE)
Source: Eurostat (nrg_100a) and (nrg_107a)

Main statistical findings

Energy supply has always been one of the main uses for wood. Policy interest in energy security and renewable sources of energy, combined with relatively high oil and gas prices, has led in recent years to a reassessment of the possible use of wood as a source of energy. The use of renewables is enshrined in legally binding targets that have been set for each EU Member State concerning the role to be played by renewable energy sources through to 2020. The 2016 edition of the indicator report on the Europe 2020 strategy Smarter, greener, more inclusive? provides information on the progress being made towards the target of achieving a 20 % share of renewable energy in final energy consumption by 2020. This goal is designed to help reduce emissions, improve the security of energy supply and reduce dependence on energy imports.

Between 2005 and 2014, the consumption of renewable energy within the EU-28 increased by 66 %. Some renewable energy sources grew exponentially. The consumption of solar energy for example, grew by 1 349 % between 2005 and 2014. However, the consumption of more established renewable energy sources, such as biomass other than wood (including municipal waste) also increased substantially (+ 184 %) during the same period. Among renewable energy sources, total biomass (wood and other biomass including municipal waste) plays an important role, accounting for just over two thirds (64 %) of the gross inland energy consumption of renewables in the EU-28 in 2014. As part of this biomass total, wood and agglomerated wood products such as pellets and briquettes provided the highest share of energy from organic, non-fossil materials of biological origin, accounting for almost half (45 %) of the EU-28’s gross inland energy consumption of renewables in 2014.

In many EU Member States, wood was the most important single source of energy from renewables. Wood and wood products accounted for 5.6 % of the total energy consumed within the EU-28 in 2014. The share of wood and wood products in gross inland energy consumption ranged from over 20 % in Latvia and Finland down to less than 1 % in Cyprus and Malta.

Wood was the source for more than three quarters of the renewable energy consumed in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Finland and Poland. By contrast, the share of wood in the mix of renewables was relatively low in Cyprus and Malta (where the lowest share was reported, 6.2 %); this was also the case in oil- and gas-rich Norway (6.4 %).

Wood pellets and other agglomerated wood products are made from dried sawdust, shavings or wood powder, with the raw material being subjected to high pressure to increase the density of the final product. Pellets and agglomerates are currently the most economical way of converting biomass into fuel and are a fast-growing source of energy in Europe. They can be used for power production or directly for combustion in residential and commercial heating.

The EU-28 was the largest global producer of wood pellets, its output reaching an estimated 13.1 million tonnes in 2014; production in the EU-28 rose by 97 % overall between 2009 and 2014. The EU-28 is also a net importer of wood pellets: the level of imports from non-EU Member States rose to 8 million tonnes in 2014, an overall increase of 364 % compared with 2009. The main suppliers of EU imports were the United States and Canada; much less is supplied by Russia and other countries (i.a. Belarus and Ukraine).

Germany produced an estimated 2.1 million tonnes of wood pellets in 2014, or 16 %, of the EU-28’s output. Sweden was the second largest producer with around 1.6 million tonnes, followed by Latvia (1.3 million tonnes), France (1.2 million tonnes), Austria and Portugal (945 and 944 thousand tonnes) (see Table 5).

Figure 4: Production and trade in wood pellets and other agglomerates, EU-28, 2008–14 (1)
(1 000 tonnes)
Source: Eurostat (for_basic)

Although potential biomass supplies within most EU Member States are substantial, some countries import significant volumes of fuel pellets and other forms of biomass as they seek to meet their renewable energy targets, raising concerns about the impact of importing wood as a source of energy and the consequences this may have on the global sustainability of forests and resulting levels of carbon emissions.

Table 5: Production and trade in wood pellets, 2010 and 2014
(1 000 tonnes)
Source: Eurostat (for_basic)

The United Kingdom was the biggest importer of wood pellets in 2014 among the EU-28 Member States, with some 7.2 million tonnes (note that this figure relates to total imports, from non-EU countries as well as from Member States). Denmark and Italy each imported around 2 million tonnes of wood pellets in 2014. By contrast, Latvia was the only EU Member State to export more than 1 million tonnes of wood pellets in 2014, followed by Portugal with 750 thousand tonnes and the Czech Republic with 701 thousand tonnes. The Czech Republic also exported 591 thousand tonnes of other agglomerates, such as wood briquettes [1].


Data sources and availability

Eurostat, the Timber Committee of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), Forestry Section of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO) collect and collate statistics on the production and trade of wood through their Joint forest sector questionnaire. Each partner collects data from a different part of the world; Eurostat is responsible for the data collection exercise pertaining to the EU Member States and EFTA countries.

Eurostat produces annual data on forestry using two questionnaires:

  • the Joint Forest Sector Questionnaire (JFSQ) on production and trade in wood and wood products;
  • integrated environmental and economic accounting for forests (IEEAF); countries are currently providing data on economic accounts for forestry and logging, forming part of an environmental satellite accounts initiative that started in the late 1990s.

The JFSQ provides data on supply balances for wood products. The data have also been used for: modelling whether supply will match demand in the future due to competing uses for materials and for energy; estimating carbon in harvested wood products for post-Kyoto negotiations.

The collection of data for integrated environmental and economic accounting for forests restarted in 2008 after a break of several years. This data provides, among others, information relating to the economic viability of forestry, employment in forestry and logging and the multi-functionality of forests. Note that the monetary values concern current basic prices (in other words, the analysis of time series is not adjusted for inflation).

Context

A broad array of EU policies and initiatives has a bearing on forests. For several decades, environmental forest functions have attracted increasing attention — for example, in relation to the protection of biodiversity and, more recently, in the context of climate change impacts and energy policies. Apart from the traditional production of wood and other forest-based products, forests are increasingly valued for their environmental role and as a public amenity. The EU promotes sustainable forest management, aiming to

  • create and preserve jobs and otherwise contribute to rural livelihoods;
  • protect the environment by preserving the soil, minimising erosion, purifying water, protecting aquifers, improving air quality, absorbing carbon, mitigating climate change, and preserving biodiversity;
  • monitor the state of forests to meet environmental agreements;
  • improve the competitiveness of forest-based industries in the internal market;
  • promote the use of wood and other forest products as environmentally friendly products;
  • reduce poverty in developing countries by furthering forest law enforcement, fair trade conditions and halting deforestation and illegal logging.


The European Commission presented a new EU forest strategy (COM(2013) 659) for forests and the forest-based sector in 2013, in response to the increasing demands put on forests and to significant societal and political changes that have affected forests over the last 15 years. The strategy is a framework for forest-related measures and is used to coordinate EU initiatives with the forest policies of the Member States. In March 2010, the European Commission adopted a Green paper on forest protection and information in the EU: preparing forests for climate change (COM(2010) 66 final). The paper aimed to stimulate debate concerning the way climate change modifies the terms of forest management and protection, and how EU policy should develop as a consequence.

Forestry, along with farming, remains crucial for land use and the management of natural resources in the EU’s rural areas, and as a basis for economic diversification in rural communities. Rural development policy is part of the EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP) which has been the main instrument for implementing forestry measures in recent years. In this context, it is estimated that spending on forest-related measures — through the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development — amounted to EUR 9–10 billion during the period 2007–13.

See also

Further Eurostat information

Publications

Main tables

Economic accounts for forestry and logging - values at current prices (tag00058)
Roundwood production (tag00072)
Total sawnwood production (tag00073)
Total paper and paperboard production (tag00074)
Forest increment and fellings (tsdnr520)

Database

Removals, production and trade (for_rpt)
Roundwood removals (for_rptr)
Roundwood production and trade (for_rptt)
Production and trade in primary products (for_rptp)
Trade in secondary processed products (for_rpts)
Economics and Employment (for_eaf)
Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting for Forests (for_ieeaf)
Historical Economic Accounts for Forestry (Series end in 2005) (for_eafh)
Sustainable forest management (for_sfm)
Assets (for_sfmas)
Environmental aspects (for_sfmen)
Environment (env)
Biodiversity (env_bio_div)
Common bird indices by type of estimate (EU aggregate) (env_bio3)

Dedicated section

Methodology / Metadata

  • Forestry [ESMS metadata file - for_esms]

Source data for tables and figures (MS Excel)

Other information

External links

Notes

  1. ↑ See table 'Roundwood, fuelwood and other basic products' (for_basic)
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