The use of solid biomass - in the form of wood chips, pellets, briquettes, firewood, sawmill residues, bark, or insect-killed trees - for fuel production is rapidly growing worldwide, with the global market for biomass pellets expected to nearly double from $4.5B in 2014 to $8.3B in 2020. Applications range from home heating, to greenhouses, schools, combined heat and power (CHP) plants, district heating stations and co-firing with coal in industrial power plants.

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Three years ago, Canadian Biomass featured Ontario Power Generation’s (OPG) Atikokan Generating Station on its cover (January 2014). Staff at OPG and particularly those in northwest operations look back with pride on the Atikokan conversion from coal to biomass and the many parallel successes enabled by this conversion.

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Jan. 24, 2017 - We can now be cautiously optimistic that prospects for Canadian wood pellet producers are beginning to improve as we have now entered 2017.

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The past few years have been challenging for wood pellet producers and pellet production project developers. A temporary plateau in demand growth for new co-firing or full conversion power plant projects in the industrial pellet market has led to an excess of production capacity. A series of warm winters in Europe compounded by low fossil fuel prices have depressed demand for pellets and new pellet stoves and boilers in the heating pellet markets. What will the future bring to the wood pellet markets? This article will try to answer that question.

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Homeowners in New Brunswick will be shelling out to heat their homes this winter, with prices for fuel increasing across the board. The prices of firewood and wood pellets remain the cheapest options, with the hike in price attributed only to HST.

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