The world-leading certification scheme to guarantee high-quality wood pellets, ENplus®, reports another year of stable growth. In 2020, the total production of certified pellets is confirmed to be 12.3 million tonnes, while the amount for the current year is foreseen to surpass 14 million tonnes.
These record volumes come as a result of the scheme’s continuous expansion and the growing number of certified companies. A month ago, ENplus® announced that the list with active certificates now includes more than 1100 pellet producers, traders, and services providers in 47 countries around the globe. Although most of the newly certified companies are located in countries such as Poland, Ukraine and Russia, an increasing interest in the scheme is also registered from pellet businesses in South America.
With over 3 million tonnes, Germany remained the biggest producer of ENplus® certified pellets in 2020. Austria kept second place followed by Russia, while Poland ranked 4th getting ahead of France and Spain. Nonetheless, all countries in the top 6 have increased their certified production compared to the previous year, with France being the only exception.
“We continue to observe a strong demand for certification coming from most countries in Europe. According to the latest data that we have, the ENplus® certified production accounts for more than 85% of the pellet volumes in at least 10 European countries. Given the circumstances around the pandemic and the national programs encouraging for a transition towards greener energy, it should be expected that many more end-users will look for high-quality pellets which is a promising forecast for the certification’s future.”, comments Catalina-Elena Dumitru, the scheme’s director.
The ENplus® management continues to allocate considerable resources in combating fraud so that the value of the certification seal remains protected over time. As of April 2021, close to 740 fraud cases have been identified and solved. To help end-users identify fraudulent companies, a blacklist is kept up-to-date on the scheme’s website.
Ever since the pandemic outbreak, ENplus® has been unable to proceed with the normal organization of its regular trainings for certified companies and partners. To ensure that the quality managers of the certified companies are properly trained and have the knowledge to supervise the quality management system in place, an e-learning platform was developed and launched.
More statistics are available on the statistic page.