Berlin/Eppingen - In the discussions about renewable energy people mostly just talk about solar thermic power plants, solar panels and wind energy. Electricity from biomass or wood is still in the early stages of development. Nevertheless, it is without question that bioenergy from wood shall be an important and logical step in the changing energy mix. The political roadmap for clean and renewable energy has been laid out in many countries worldwide.

In 2008, Dieffenbacher started to look at this development carefully and conducted a detailed analysis of the overall situation. Many parts of central Europe and North America saw the installation of hundreds of pellet plants with rather small capacities of 40.000 to 100.000 tons per year. These pellet plants produce for residential use for heating in small stoves typically. As industrial power plants look for wood as sustainable alternative to fossil fuels a different and more industrial approach is necessary. Capacities of 300.000 tons per year or more require properly designed and optimized processes with new types of machines and an adequate and reliable raw material base. For power companies, this is the decisive element. Therefore, the first new industrial scale pellet plants are not built in Europe but in the south of the USA. Here are located large tracts of available under-utilized woodlands where the required resources grow and be can be harvested for and used by the industry. A fear of a lack of raw material by the furniture industry is not backed up by material surveys. Multiple studies show that the growth of wood will outpace the global use of wood. The consumption by the pulp and paper industry shall further decline and result in more available fibers.

Therefore, it is not at all a contradiction for Dieffenbacher as a traditional supplier for the wood panel industry to enter into the pellet industry and thus to offer plants for wood based panels as well as for the use of wood for energy generation. As supplier of complete equipment packages for the wood based panel industry Dieffenbacher has the competence, experience and expertise to process wood in a safe and proper way at large scales and is unique in that it has all the relevant process equipment for pellets in its portfolio.

Source: LIGNA