A Study On The Biomass Energy Potential Of Turkey: Example Of Wood Pellets

Abstract

Wood Pellet, one of the biomass fuels in renewable energy sources, stands out among all renewable energy sources with it’s ease of production technology, environmental friendliness and similar features. Wood pellets, which are fuel pellets of 6-10 mm diameter, which are obtained from the drying of wood waste, milling it into sawdust and then compressing it with high pressure, have become economically comparable with fossil fuels today. Wood pellet trade worldwide increased by more than 21% in 2018 compared to the previous year, reaching a trade volume of 22.3 million tons. The biggest pellet exporter countries in the world since 2012 are USA, Canada, Vietnam, Latvia and Russia respectively. These countries accounted for approximately 69% of the world export volume in 2018. Except for five countries, they continue to work on alternative energy sources and especially the production, technology, use and properties of wood pellets in China. In Turkey, there are studies on the production of wood pellets and the economy. However, these studies need to be updated both in terms of production and economics. In the study, analyzed the current data with the potential that Turkey has developed proposals for the use of this potential.