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Wood pellets are a coming energy resource, due to many good qualities. Wood pellets is a very good efficient fuel, clean, dry, regular, well defined, so it is easy to burn: Efficient and clean. Also it is easy to handle as it is fed automatically into the boilers. And it has the advantage of the other renewables: clean and CO2 neutral.
Wood pellets are made from wood waste from industry. Production level has reached approx. 150.000 tonnes in Denmark, and the market is growing rapidly. The annual consumption is approx. 225.000 tonnes.
There is no more surplus saw dust in Denmark, and a considerable part of the wood waste used for the pellets and wood pellets are imported from USA/ Canada, Sweden and the Baltic States. There are a few large producers of wood pellets and a few smaller. There is a tendency of large actors buying small actors. The pellets are produced from sawdust from beech directly from saw mills/ furniture manufacturers. Besides there are several importers of saw dust, wood waste and pellets.
There is a wide wood pellet distribution network, which has grown after several large oil companies has entered the market. Pellets are delivered at door either from lorry direct to a tank, or in bags (10 - 16 kg.)
There is no overall classification or standards for pellets in Denmark, however the large manufacturers/ distributors have classification and quality control and green accountances, etc.
Approx. 250.00 tones of wood pellets are used in Denmark. This is in small (10 - 150 kW) boilers in private homes, institutions, schools or companies, and in approx. 37 small district heating plants. Besides it is used in a few CHP plants. District heating in Denmark. Approx. 37 district heating plants have switched from coal to wood pellets in the beginning of the 1990. This was generally due to a coal tax increase, and it was technically done by a minor conversion of the boiler system. Example: Ry varmevaerk. There have been no new projects using wood pellets as fuel.
An argument in Denmark is that wood pellets is a very refined fuel, and therefore should be used in small boilers, whereas large plants are able to exploit other fuels such as wood chips and straw.
In the future wood should be used in CHP plants, for instance district heating plants being transferred to CHP. However, the plan for transferring more wood pellet district heating plants to CHP has more or less stopped till the technical solutions will be economical viable. CPH plants with wood pellets: Galten, Harbo0re.
The small biomass fired boilers can really be considered a success in Denmark: Since 1995 there has been investment subsidies for those plants, and every year approx. 2.000 plants have been established. A large part of them are automatically fueled boilers based on refined biomass such as wood pellets. In year 2000 the market exploded with more than 4500 boilers due to the increasing oil prices. Those boilers vary in size from 10 - 150 kW, and are installed in private houses, farms, small industries, etc.
Due to the success of the subsidy programme the subsidy has decreased over the years since it started in 1995, and in 2001 it will vanish totally.
In general a private houseowner can save approx. 3300 DKK per 1000 litre oil the wood pellets substitute.
There are approx. 30 manufacturers of altogether 250 type approved various types and sizes of boilers. The boilers have reached a very high efficiency and low emission - partly due to the Danish ttype approval system. The size of the subsidy has been dependent of the testing included in the type approval, meaning the less emission, and the higher efficiency, the higher subsidy. In this way systematic testing has given a boost to increased efficiency and reduction of emissions, due to the good interaction between the test station and the manufacturers of boilers.
