The atmosphere is cheerful and there is a smell of forest and hay at the Work and Training Center in Luster (ATS) in Indre Parish. Usually the orders come in at the end of August and the beginning of September, but this year everything has been pre-ordered quite a while ago. The situation is the same over large parts of the country: partly extremely high electricity prices mean that the price of wood has skyrocketed. The warehouse is empty. – Everyone wants to fill up their stocks, even those who don’t buy every year, says senior advisor Simen Gjølsjø at the Norwegian Institute for Bioeconomy at Ås. “Perfect storm” The war in Ukraine and very high electricity prices are setting the stage for a “perfect storm” in the wood market. At petrol stations, the price for a sack of 40 liters of firewood can be up to NOK 200, Gjølsjø believes. That is a threefold increase from last winter and at least a doubling compared to today’s prices. But the wood expert adds that prices can also fall if there is a very mild winter. – Anything can happen, he says. Price per kilowatt for wood burning: Sack (40 litres) of birch at NOK 200 = NOK 4/kWh Sack (40 litres) of birch at NOK 100 = NOK 2/kWh Large sack (1500 litres) of birch at NOK 2000 = NOK 1.33/kWh A large sack (1500 litres) of dry fir for NOK 1200 = NOK 1.05/kWh It provides good heat and coziness, but wood burning can be an expensive alternative. Photo: Harald Krogtoft / news – Very cynical At ATS in Luster, they have no plans to exploit the situation. They charge NOK 82 for a sack of 60 liters of birch wood and NOK 67 for a sack of 40 litres. The pine wood is cheaper. – It is very cynical to raise the price as strongly as the expert suggests. We stick to a fixed price all year round, says daily manager Odd Atle Stegegjerdet at ATS. Colleague Anita Midthun nods. – NOK 200 for a small sack of firewood is hair-raising, she says. ATS in Luster produces 8,500 sacks of firewood a year. Photo: Bård Siem / news Much cheaper to use electricity Simen Gjølsjø says that if a 40-litre sack of firewood costs NOK 200, the price will be NOK four per kilowatt. With electricity support, it will therefore be much cheaper to heat the house with electricity. With a price of NOK 100 per bag (40 litres), it will cost NOK two per kilowatt. Then, according to Gjølsjø, one will be in a border country if it pays to fire wood. If you buy large sacks of 1500 litres, you can get firewood for less than one kroner per kilowatt for dry spruce and 1.33 kroner for birch wood. – With today’s high electricity prices, it will then be profitable to fire with wood, he says. Electricity is very expensive in eastern and southern Norway, but in northern Norway, central Norway and northwestern Norway the price is very low. Even with low wood prices, it will probably not be profitable to fire with wood at all. 60 million sacks were used last year Øyvind Stranna Larsen works as a trade manager at Norsk ved, an interest organization for around 2,700 Norwegian wood producers. He has no sense that some people set up extreme price jumps. – We are very interested in having a serious business with a good relationship with our customers. Then we can’t skin them, he says. CRITICAL: Professional representative in the interest organization Norsk ved, Øyvind Stranna Larsen, thinks it will be completely wrong to fleece customers with extremely high prices. Photo: Sigrid Sørumgård Botheim / news Norsk ved conducted a member survey last winter in which eight out of ten responded that they would increase prices by 15 percent from the previous year. Two out of ten would keep the same price. – If you buy wood directly from serious wood producers, the price will be something completely different from what has been suggested, he says. Last year, the equivalent of 60 million 60 liter sacks were bought in Norway. This is an increase of 18 percent from the previous year. This year, a further increase is expected. Last year, 10 percent of the wood was imported from abroad.
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Record amounts of wood can make it cheaper to fire with electricity – news Vestland
