Mola-Yudego, Blas
- Department of Crop Production Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- University of Eastern Finland
Abstract
The distribution of the wood pellet plants in Europe was analysed using a geo-statistical kernel based approach, in order to identify and define cluster-regions with high concentration of pellet production capacity. For that, a database with the location of pellet plants, as well as its capacity, was constructed, identifying 378 pellet plants with annual capacities over 1000 t, and an aggregated production of 11.5 million t. The geo-statistical methods facilitated the analysis of the plants with regards to their market position at global and local level.At a European level, four main production areas were identified, defined as: "Central Europe" (Bavaria, Austria, and neighbouring areas of France, Switzerland and Italy), "Scandinavia", "Finland", and the "Baltic". These areas concentrated over 50% of the pellet production, although presented different characteristics regarding market establishment and development, their role in the global pellet trade and their raw material availability. The paper provides with methodological tools to identify and characterise the main pellet production areas in Europe that can have further economic and policy applications. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords
Pellet trade; Bioenergy; Kernel models; Supply; Energy; Bioenergy
Published in
Renewable Energy
2014, volume: 63, pages: 76-83
SLU Authors
Global goals (SDG)
SDG7 Affordable and clean energy
UKÄ Subject classification
Other Earth Sciences
Forest Science
Bioenergy
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2013.08.034
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/66075