Temporary changes made to quality requirements of wood pellets
The quality criteria of wood pellet used by recipients of the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) has been suspended for 12 months to help tackle the wood pellet shortage in the UK.
This means that wood pellet does not need to meet ENplus A1 standards. Whilst we welcome the temporary rule change – which will open new supply routes and make it easier to replace Russian wood pellet – we are urging people to be careful about the type of pellet they buy this winter. Thanks to our robust and long-established supply chain, at AMP we will continue to supply our customers with wood pellets from ENplus mills this winter.
“Poor quality wood pellet can be extremely damaging to the operation of biomass boilers and can even contribute to boiler breakdowns. Whilst there is good quality non-ENplus certified pellet on the market, there is also cheaper, poor quality pellet on sale. To protect the operation of your biomass boiler it is always best to ask what quality criteria your pellet meets. As a market leading business with long established supply chains, AMP is in the fortunate position of being able to continue to supply ENplus wood pellet so our customers will be completely unaffected by these changes.”
Bruno Berardelli, Group Chief Operating Officer
As a business we already meet the requirements of ENplus by screening our pellet at our depots. We also carry out independent pellet inspections of pellet shipments coming in from overseas.
The temporary rule change on ENplus was announced by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) following a global wood pellet shortage caused by the sanctions imposed on Russia and Belarus. Prior to this it is estimated that up to 40% of the ENplus pellets used in the UK was imported from Russia and Belarus.
To further support the capacity of the UK biomass heat industry, we are encouraging BEIS to do everything they can to support the biomass heat industry to have ready access to high quality feedstocks.
