UK biomass industry calls on UK government to keep supply chains open

March 26, 2020 |

In the UK, industry leaders are urging Government to keep UK wood fuel supply chains fully open to ensure suppliers can continue delivering to home heating customers and key frontline organizations and businesses already under immense pressure due to the Coronavirus outbreak.

With hundreds of hospitals, health and social care facilities, supermarkets and many large-scale food producers already working to maximum capacity and relying solely on biomass wood fuel for heating and hot water, the industry is asking ministers for full reassurance that UK production, wood pellet imports and transportation of biomass fuel all remain open.

Biomass Heat Works! (the UK Pellet Council and Wood Heat Association) is therefore urgently asking the Department for Transport (DfT), the Department for International Trade (DIT) and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), to work closely with them and ensure crucial fuel supplies are maintained.

The Department for Environment, Food, Agriculture and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) also has a crucial role in ensuring wood fiber supply chains remain open for UK biomass production and the jobs they support across the economy.  

This is especially prevalent for rural and farming areas given that many large-scale agricultural food producers, now critical to the UK’s food supply chain, specify biomass wood fuel for their heating requirements. For example, one of the UK’s largest poultry producers uses approximately 20,000 tons of wood pellets per annum across sites nationally.  

Similarly, one of the country’s leading supermarket chains, now at the forefront of supply chain efforts, heats almost 100 of its sites using biomass wood pellets. This equates to circa 30,000 tons per annum with deliveries to each store every 2-3 weeks. 

Category: Fuels

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