Market of biomass fuels in Finland

Aug 2009

Finland has long-standing traditions in the utilisation of biomass in energy production, and bioenergy plays an important role in the Finnish energy system. The country is one of the world’s largest importers of raw wood; consequently a significant proportion of biomass fuels produced and consumed in the forest industry physically originates from abroad. Finland is also a significant exporter of wood pellets. The export and import volumes of biomass fuels in Finland have previously been investigated in 2005–2006, when an extensive study was carried out for determining import and export volumes of biomass fuels and investigating the challenges related to the issue. In this paper, the previous analysis of the Finnish situation regarding markets and international trade of biomass fuels is updated. The most recent data that was available dates back to halfway through the year 2009. The report is a part of the Finnish contribution to Task 40 collaboration and EUBIONET III.
The structure of this paper is as follows. Section 2 gives an overview of the role of bioenergy in the Finnish energy system. Section 3 describes the Finnish energy policy and policy measures on bioenergy. Section 4 discusses biomass fuels in indigenous markets. Section 5 focuses on the international biomass fuels trade. The most important biomass fuels import and export streams are reviewed in Section 6. The summary and conclusions of the paper are presented in Section 7.

By: J. Heinimö, E. Alakangas (Lappeenranta University of Technology)

 
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