Biomass trade in Europe

The paper concentrares on rating the current situation and future trends of solid biomass fuel trade in Europe. The annual assessed figure for the total techno-ecenomical volme of solid biomass fuel resources according to EUBIONET II study for 20 EU countries is 143 Mtoe, while the biomass use was 65.5 Mtoe. This means that currently about 50% of the estimated biomass potential is exploited. The greatest potential to increase the use of biomass in energy production seems to lie in forest residues and other biomass resources (agrobiomass and fruit biomass). The most traded biomass fuel is pellets. This is natural, as pellets are the most compact form of solid biofuels, so the transport costs per energy unit is lowest, which is importatn especially with longer transport distances. In addition, introducing pellets in existing plant usually requires less modification at the plant compared with more heterogenous fuels. The eight EU memeber states in the Baltic Sea area contribute the major bioenergy production and use in the EU25, 48% of biomass use in EU25. This area is also important international trader of solid biomass fuels. The current pellet production in the baltic Sea area is around 3 million tons