Browsing by Subject "metsäenergia"

Forest energy harvesting has increased significantly in recent years. The extraction of forest energy is usually done with conventional forwarders. The productivity of extraction work is, however, quite poor due to a low material density, which results in a small load size. The objective of the study was to increase the productivity of forest energy extraction via solutions that increase the load size. The first method that was studied involved widening the load space hydraulically. The other solution was based on compressing the load with hydraulically tiltable stakes. The study was conducted as a development study. The field studies were carried out in the summer and autumn of 2011 on harvesting sites managed by Metsähallitus and Metsäliitto in the Jyväskylä region. The study material comprises a total of 139 loads. There was a significant difference in raw density between the logging residues and stump pieces for the widening and compressing load space solutions. For this reason, it does not make sense to compare the two load space solutions to each other. The analyses were based on the reported load scale tonnes. Both load space alternatives increased the load size by 20-30 per cent depending on the assortment. For logging residues, the increase in efficient hour productivity for extraction was 13 per cent and for stump pieces it was 30 per cent. With the compressing load space, the efficient hour productivity for full trees increased by 17 per cent. For logging residues, the increase was 5 per cent and for stump pieces it was 12 per cent. Compression was not a successful method for stump pieces and even for logging residues the benefits were mainly based on the increased load space. Compressing the load is mainly beneficial when extracting full trees. The project was carried out together with Osuuskunta Metsäliitto (now Metsä Group), Metsä-Multia Oy and Ponsse Oyj. The modelling work was done by Metsäteho Oy. This study shows results of Metsähallitus project “Maastokuljetuksen kehittäminen”. The project is part of the EffFibre (Value through Intensive and Efficient Fibre Supply) research and development programme coordinated by Forestcluster Ltd.

Bioenergy has taken over a significant role in Finnish society in the past decade. European Union’s joint climate targets, extreme natural phenomena, as well as the depletion of non-renewable resources and the rise in the non-renewable resources prices have increased the use of bioenergy almost a necessity. One of the best bioenergy sources is wood energy, which can be obtained from stumps, logging residues and from small tree harvesting in form of wood chips. Energy wood has become one of the timber assortments in the forest sector, but it must be remembered that the acquisition is strongly associated with the conventional industrial wood harvesting. There is lots of potential in the use and procurement of forest energy. Production of local energy from the nearby forests in the local energy plant provides employment for local people and brings tax revenue to municipalities. At the same time the forest industry gets timber and private forest owners’ receive income from managed forests. The forest energy’s future importance for the society cannot be understated. Objective of this study was to explore the Stora Enso Forest’s gold and silver star clients’ willingness to supply wood-based biomass for bioenergy and look for factors that affect the decision. In addition, it was explored if there would be new ways of marketing forest energy to the landowners. Stratified sample of Stora Enso’s client record was done for the study. From the record, 1000 landowners were picked and interviewed by telephone in the spring 2012. The questionnaire was answered by 609 forest owners and percentage response rate was 63. The respondents differed from the general forest owners' in such a way that they were older, owned major forest areas as well as the men were over-represented. The results indicate that the willingness to sell forest energy (68%) is clearly lower than the willingness to sell raw wood (94%) in the future, but the numbers of unaware (15%) is quite high. Forest owners' clear favorite of forest energy harvesting methods is energy wood harvesting, which was chosen as the best choice for 70 percent of the respondents. Equally clear is the harvesting method which was the most disliked, stump lifting. It was chosen as the best alternative by just over four percent. Forest owners' price expectations about energy wood are quite high. Only one-third of the forest owners are satisfied with the current price level, which is effected by state subsidies. Approximately 13 percent of respondents are out of the forest energy market completely because of unrealistically high price expectations. The rise of the forest energy price was also the biggest single factor to increase the willingness to supply wood-based biomass for bioenergy. In this study, forest owners are concerned about of climate change and they are hoping to increase the use of forest biomass for the energy production in Finland. Particularly the local use of wood chips was valued high. The majority of forest owners consider the sale of forest energy as a climate conservation act. There are a lots of information requirements, in particular related to energy wood harvesting. Many landowners are concerned about nutrient losses, harvesting marks and the forest energy pricing.