Summary
¦ Eddie Stobart has invested £30m in biomass distribution.
¦ A UK retailer’s planned biomass will use 7,000m³ of fuel a month.
¦ 1,600 London schools intend to switch to wood-fuelled heating.
¦ BAA is installing a biomass heating plant at Heathrow.
¦ A power station in Avonmouth will burn 850,000 tonnes of wood a year.

The potential of wood and other biomass fuels to generate heat and power has been a matter of speculation for some time. But now it’s gone beyond that. The drive for sustainability and ‘green energy’ is a solid reality and an ever broader spectrum of businesses, besides the power generators, is looking at how it can exploit biofuel.

Signs that this sector is putting down ever more solid roots and developing an infrastructure all its own came just recently with the news that logistics giant Eddie Stobart was investing £30m in a joint venture with timber and forest co-products specialist AW Jenkinson Forest Products to collect and distribute biomass fuel. And in TTJ’s recent British timber market report, the Wood Panel Industries Federation highlighted the increasing competition its panel manufacturer members are facing for their raw material from the energy market, with the confidence of the latter underlined by the longer-term supply deals it is willing to sign.

Earlier this year at a London Softwood Club meeting, Guy Bewick of agent/broker Pacific Lumber Services also underlined how the timber trade is set to be affected by this rapidly evolving business.

“I don’t know how many in the trade are aware of just how important this product will become in the next few years,” he said. “Our awareness of climate change and carbon emissions is to the fore and many leading UK plcs, including power generators, retail conglomerates and public services are spearheading the use of wood, not just for construction, but also for fuels to enhance their carbon footprint. Most new superstores, for instance, are designed to be carbon neutral. Besides a glulam structure, that also means a biomass boiler.“

Mr Bewick and a business associate in the power generation sector have now themselves become involved in biofuel sourcing.

Retail demand

“It’s fascinating,” he said. “One customer has an agreement to supply wood pellets as a fuel to 100 stores of one of the leading chains. They consume 40 tonnes per month per store, which is 4,000 tonnes or 7,000m³ per month in total.”

Mr Bewick was also recently called by consulting engineer Costain, which was tendering for the conversion of 1,600 schools in south London from oil/gas to wood fuel heating. “Each school would consume a minimum of 12 tonnes per month, making a total of 19,000 tonnes,” he said. “To put this into context, Balcas’s pellet mill in the Highlands has an annual capacity of 100,000 tonnes.”

Highlighting the increasing breadth and depth of this sector, Mr Bewick’s business has also been asked to tender to BAA to supply Heathrow with 38,000 tonnes of wood fuel a year.

“In addition there is a new power plant opening in Port Talbot which will use 400,000 tonnes a year, a Helius Energy plant in Avonmouth set to use 850,000 tonnes and a bio-ethanol plant on Teeside requiring 300,000.”

Most of these projects, he added, are set to come to fruition during winter 2010/11.

Supply boost

The encouraging forecast from Mr Bewick is that the growth in the wood energy market could potentially boost raw material supply for the wider timber industry as yield from logs to make wood pellets is greater than that for pulp. “If this frees up the availability of pulp-type logs,” he maintained, “then it is more likely sawlogs will be harvested and there will be more sawn timber available.”

That said, the other clear message from Mr Bewick is that the timber supply sector needs to keep a very close eye on this fast evolving business which is set to be a major influence in the global wood industry generally.

In the following pages we have a number of perspectives on where this sector may be headed and the implications, plus a look at wood-fuelled boiler and fuel-making technology that timber companies might look at installing themselves to cut their energy costs and carbon footprints.