Sweden has set itself the goal of producing 50 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020 and making itself independent of fossil fuels by 2050. If these goals are to be reached, there must be an increase in the use of biofuel.
Almost a third of the total energy used in Sweden, which is to say 115 terawatt-hours (TWh), is today produced using biofuel. This has been shown in an analysis made by the Swedish Bioenergy Association. Almost a third of this biofuel comes from trees, forest produce that has not undergone a chemical process. Over the past ten years, the amount of fuel extracted from forest has quadrupled, and demand for it is still increasing.
Forest fuel is primarily made up of branches and tops, known as 'grot', which is the residual from felling. However, the increase in demand has resulted in an increase in price making it now feasible to process tree stumps, parts of trees and split timber. A hectare of stumps equates to the yearly energy consumption of six normal sized houses, or 120 megawatt hours (MWh).
Örebro county produces the most biofuel
Mathias Carlsson is the biofuel salesmen at Sveaskog in Bergslagen. He explains that the market in the region is the most developed in the country.
"Örebro and Mälardalen counties are the most densely populated areas in Sweden, and there are a lot of district heating plants here," he tells us.
1.2 TWh of Sveaskog's total biofuel sales of 2.8 TWh are delivered to this region. Sveaskog's largest biofuel supplier in the region is Örebro municipality, which provides large amounts of biofuel through hedge clippings and other garden waste from its inhabitants and from care of municipal land. Biofuel is sold to, among others, the energy company Eon and is then returned to the municipality's inhabitants in the form of district heating.
The challenge of meeting the demand
At present, biofuel is normally priced in sek per MWh and is purchased as whole tops and branches at the roadside. For it to be profitable to transport biofuel over a distance of more than 70 kilometres, it would have to be compressed or chipped. The drier and cleaner the material, the higher the price. Increasing oil prices and the focus on environmental impact are raising demand. And the price development is promoting technical development.
"The market for biofuel is looking very favourable just now," says Mathias Carlsson. "The challenge lies in supplying enough to meet our customers' requirements. They demand that we work on a broader front with method development, with the extraction of material that is not extracted at present and with a wider range of products."