UK wood suppliers have reported an unprecedented surge in demand for logs, briquettes and other biomass products as households rush to minimise the impact of energy bills rising 80 per cent next month.
However, experts cautioned that a resurgence in burning wood in stoves, fires and boilers at home could exacerbate air pollution and damage people’s health.
“What we’re seeing is an absolute panic buy, like a covid emptying of the shelves of loo roll and pasta,” says Marc Odin at MJO Forestry, which supplies wood to 15 retailers in the south-east of England.
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In a normal August, he delivers some 55 cubic metres of wood; last month, he delivered about 250 cubic metres. “It is all about the gas price,” he says, referring to Ofgem, the energy regulator for England, Scotland and Wales, last week confirming that the .
More than four-fifths of the UK’s homes are heated by gas, while also burn wood fuel. This coming winter, fires and stoves that burn wood look likely to be used much more heavily than in recent years as people try to minimise the use of central heating.
“It’s just absolutely unprecedented,” says Rowland Parke at the Wood Fuel Co-operative in Dumfries, UK. He says the group sold as much wood in June and August as it would usually during three months in autumn and winter. Someof the 2000 customers that the co-op serves in the local area have told his team that they are going to turn down the gas and electric and burn as much wood as they can.
Bruce Allen, chief executive of HETAS and Woodsure, groups that certify stove installations and quality wood, says “members are also seeing a higher demand for wood fuel with customers stocking up on wood earlier and taking bigger loads to avoid using their central heating as much”. People also seem to be installing more wood-burning appliances than usual at this time of year, says Allen. Visits to the HETAS website were up 60 per cent in August.
Allen says it is important that people buy wood with a moisture content of less than 20 per cent, which minimises particulate pollution. “If we are going to see an increase in wood burning as an alternative, then we want to ensure that it’s being done in the most environmentally responsible way to safeguard the air we all breathe,” he says.
Mark Lebus at the UK Pellet Council, which is a trade body, says: “We are seeing considerable uptick in new wood burning stoves and small domestic biomass boilers as the price of wood pellets remains very competitive with gas, oil and especially electricity.”
Other companies supplying biomass for homes report a dramatic bump in custom. “Demand for firewood is huge with customers wanting to have an alternative heating source and fuel paid for ahead of winter,” says one industry figure, who didn’t want to be named.
A spokesperson for Big K, which supplies supermarkets including Ocado, says the company is seeing “earlier than normal trends”, in particular for bulk wood sold in big bags. “We are aware of smaller processors facing a significant uplift in demand compared to the last few years,” they add.
Janis Reinsons at Lekto Woodfuels in the UK, which sources wood from Latvia, says the company “has been experiencing historically high demand this summer”. The firm sold more wood fuel in August than its usual peak month of December. Reinsons says he is aware of competitors routinely running out stock.
“It is impossible to tell whether or not the wood fuel industry will be able to satisfy the demand for wood fuels during the peak heating season,” he says. Odin says that two of the biggest retailers he supplies expect to run out of wood by December, if the current high demand continues.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the main reason for rising gas prices, also seems to be shifting the provenance of wood burned in UK homes. Parke says one major German supplier has hiked prices of beech exports to preserve the fuel for domestic use. Wood fuel imports from Russia and Belarus to the UK have also been halted since the war began, says Mark Sommerfeld at the Wood Heat Association, another trade body. The UK government suspending rules on the quality of wood pellets due to disrupted supplies since the invasion.
Growth in the number of wood-burning stoves in recent years has seen a , known as PM2.5, from domestic wood burning between 2010 and 2020. That has led to . Yet today’s high gas prices look set to boost wood burning, and air pollution in the process.
at Imperial College London says: “It is important that vulnerable people are helped to keep warm this winter, but extra wood burning is not the answer. It will worsen the existing air pollution problems in our cities, towns and even across the countryside in the UK and Europe.” He says people also need to think about where wood is sourced from, because felling more trees will see woodlands release more carbon and could harm wildlife habitats.
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