French forestry cooperatives demand rapid increase in wood energy projectsFrédéric DOUARD3 October 2017
Harvest of wood energy in private forest, photo UCFFSince the launch of the wood energy market in France there is more than 20 years, forestry cooperatives have always been present to meet a new and growing market. They have demonstrated their competence in the mobilization of the resource and are today the leading producer of wood chips in France.The heat fund, essential tool for the establishment of collective wood energy boiler, is it up to the situation? The answer is NO, the number of projects is historically low.
It does not correspond to the targets set by the public authorities to reach the percentages of renewable energy consumption in 2030.
In addition, the price of fossil fuels greatly hampers the consumption of wood energy. A drop in 30% of the volumes delivered in the second quarter 2017, at the national level, shows that energy companies prefer other low-cost energies.
The immediate consequences are a large deficit of logging as a whole and a loss of direct income for forest owners.
The forestry cooperatives therefore call for an urgent rebalancing of the competitiveness of wood energy. The heat fund, the amount of which must double rapidly, must be used to revive and sustain the use of wood energy.
Forest cooperatives have sufficient resources to respond to markets. They know how to harvest and value it. As a result, forest cooperatives engage in the regular supply of fuelwood if these markets are relaunched very quickly.
Finally, forestry cooperatives strongly encourage the State to actively pursue its investment for a real increase in the consumption of Renewable Energy. Wood is the first of the ENR far ahead of wind, solar or even hydraulics. It is therefore necessary to arrogate the aid on the price differential between fossil energy and wood energy.
Wood is not uncommon, it is valuable for the entire wood forest sector. But it is essential to invest in a thoughtful and balanced way between upstream (mobilization of the resource) and downstream (construction of boiler houses), by encouraging the grouping of forest owners.
With a turnover of 430 millions of euros and 1 000 employees, the Union of French Forest Cooperation is the first economic force of the French private forest. It brings together 19 forestry cooperatives in France which bring together 120 000 forest producers members, manage 2 million hectares of forests,
produce 7 millions of m3 of wood per year. Forest cooperatives are the largest producer of wood chips in France (600 000 tonnes / year).
www.ucff.asso.fr