Large Industrial Users of Energy Biomass

The objective of the study is to obtain a global overview of the biomass use in industrial and transport sectors and to compose lists of the largest users of energy biomass in the world. Various statistics, databases, reports, and reviews, most of them publicly available, have been utilised during the study to examine plants that either refine biomass for use in transportation and heating purposes or plants that convert biomass into heat and power.

The plant lists presented are based on the prevailing situation in the end of the year 2012; due to lack of comprehensive and accurate plant - specific information and rapidly changing situation, the results should be used with care. Currently, the scope of energy biomass trade is about 1 EJ/yr representing about 5% of the total use of biomass for energy in industrialised countries. Direct trade of biofuels is increasing strongly, whereas indirect trade, which includes imported industrial round wood and wood chips that end up as energy, has been quite stable within the recent years. In particular, trade volumes of biodiesel and wood pellets have been growing lately. The Majority of the biomass energy use in 2009, 66%, is residential use, mainly in developing countries. Excluding residential use, the most important user countries are Brazil, the US and India.

Biomass use in industrial and transportation sectors is concentrated in a small number of countries; in 2009 the fifteen largest users consumed 78% of biofuels in the industrial sector and 95% in the transportation sector. Large plants that process or refine biomass are located primarily in the industrialised countries. The largest plants are producing ethanol and biodiesel ; pellet plants are slightly smaller and gasification, torrefaction and pyrolysis facilities are rare and significantly smaller. Examination of industrial biomass use at plant level shows that recovery boilers and ethanol mills cover together more than half of the use.

Global biodiesel production capacity is only slightly smaller than ethanol production capacity, but the utilisation rate is low, about 35%. Comparison of the global capacities (PJ /a ) of biomass user plants and the share of the fifteen largest plants in each category at the end of 2012 showed that they are using large amounts of biomass but in no category (with perhaps a n exception in the co - firing category ) do they dominate the biomass usage . Large new plants can however greatly affect the biomass markets at country level. The fifteen largest pulverised firing boilers co - firing biomass cover up to 43% of the biomass co - firing capacity. For other boilers as well as wood pellet, biodiesel, and ethanol production the share of the fifteen largest plants is around 10 to 20% of the sectors capacity.

Actual use of biomass in the fifteen largests plants exceeds 20% of the sector's use for biodiesel plants, pulverized fuel boilers and CFB boilers, while for other categories, it is close to 10%. Most part of the biomass feed (counted according to the capacity of the plants) used in the largest plants comes from a local source; impo rted biomass is used primarily in biodiesel plants and pulverised firing boilers. Most part of imported biomass is used in Europe. While the use of raw biomass will likely remain local, the trade of refined biofuels such as bioethanol, biodiesel and wood pellets will likely continue to increase in the near future.