Consumers of this pelleted wood that is burned in boilers or stoves have also not been spared from rising energy prices this winter. Last autumn, prices rose up to 67% compared to last year and have not stopped increasing to date, according to the Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU). Despite this, the organization has calculated that pellets remain the most economical heating option. Specifically, the OCU estimates that this renewable fuel represents savings of up to 20% compared to a natural gas condensing boiler and up to 57% compared to an electric radiator system without energy storage.
Pellet is experiencing its most expensive winter, but also the hottest due to the great tensions that the market has experienced in recent months and which have been the cause behind the increase in prices. Luckily for consumers, it seems that prices "have hit a ceiling", ventures to affirm Adriano Raddi, an expert in forestry economics at the Center de Ciència i Tecnologia Forestal de Catalunya (CTFC).
The first culprit behind this rise in prices is the increased demand, which could not be satisfied with an increase in production, due to the difficulties in extracting wood from the forest and the slowness of the wood drying process. "There has been a slight increase in demand due to consumers who have switched to pellets, but the big problem has been that buyers from all over Europe advanced their purchases for fear of shortages," explains Jordi Tarradas Martí, managing director of the Catalan Federation. d'Associacions de Propietaris Forestals (Boscat) and coordinator of the Biomass commission of the Bioenergy Cluster of Catalonia. "There were countries that bought from the international market at whatever price," adds Tarradas. Raddi adds that "more than necessary was bought just in case, as with toilet paper during the covid, and there were also those who did not sell hoping that the price would rise even more."
Beyond the demand, the pellet has also been a victim of the increase in energy prices, necessary for the manufacture and transport of this wood fuel.
Prices have risen, but Raddi laments that "the increase has practically not reached the forest worker, which does not encourage more people willing to do this work or invest in its mechanization." The lack of labor and the little mechanization of wood extraction in Catalan forests are the main bottleneck in the sector. "Sawmills and paper mills are working below their production capacity due to a lack of raw material," says Pere Sala, spokesman for the Association of Finishers and Serrators of Catalonia (Arescat). Even so, the national production of pellets has increased by almost 20% in 2022 compared to the previous year, according to data from the Spanish Biomass Society (Avebiom).
"The potential of the Catalan forest is very high, but we are incapable of taking advantage of it," denounces Sala. Tarradas agrees: "There is more and more demand, but the amount of wood that comes out of the forests is the same because we are not capable of managing more hectares." Raddi puts the figures on the table: "Of the three million cubic meters of new forest material that is generated each year in Catalonia, only one million is used, which means that year after year we accumulate two million forest material." To which Pere Sala recalls: "We must not forget that when we talk about wood, we are talking about sustainable forest management and fire risk prevention."
