Bavaria wants to promote energy production from wood – especially for heating. In Ettal, Upper Bavaria, eight other partners signed a “Bavaria Wood Energy Pact” on Thursday alongside Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger (Free Voters) and Agriculture Minister Michaela Kaniber (CSU). In addition to the forest owners’ and farmers’ associations, these included the association of cities and municipalities, the professional association of forestry companies and industry associations.
In addition to a clear general commitment to wood energy, the pact includes, among other things, the announcement that the Bavarian BioWärme funding program will be expanded as needed. In addition, an information offering for municipalities is to be developed that “deals with the opportunities of wood energy in combination with other renewable energies and heat storage devices”.
Aiwanger emphasized: “We are also looking at combinations of wood energy with other renewable energy sources and technologies. This is important to us. We want to find the best solutions, depending on the initial situation on site.” Kaniber added: “There is enough wood available in Bavaria – both for material and energy use. Contrary to what is often claimed, the two ways of recycling are not contradictory.”
No other federal state uses wood for heating as much as Bavaria. According to the 2022 microcensus from the Federal Statistical Office, 9.7 percent of households in the Free State heat primarily with wood. In Lower Bavaria and Upper Palatinate it is even around 17 percent. The national average is 4.2 percent.
How environmentally friendly heating with wood is is controversial. Proponents point out that the CO₂ released during burning was previously removed from the atmosphere during growth and, at least for domestic wood, the delivery routes are short. Critics, on the other hand, emphasize that the CO₂ – if a new tree is planted – will only be absorbed again within decades when it grows back. There are also emissions during the extraction of wood and potentially the drying out of forest soils, in which a lot of CO₂ is also stored.
“Heating with wood obviously puts a strain on the climate through the CO₂ released.”
The Federal Environment Agency (UBA) is critical of heating with wood. Wood should be better used in long-lasting products in which the CO₂ remains bound, according to a review published last year. “Wood should only be used to heat buildings in well-founded exceptional cases where there is actually no alternative.” The UBA also points to further emissions from wood burning. Particularly the resulting fine dust is bad for your health.
The Federation for Nature Conservation (BN) also criticizes the fact that the Bavarian wood energy pact suggests that wood is a climate-friendly energy source. “Heating with wood obviously puts a strain on the climate through the CO₂ released,” says BN boss Richard Mergner. “If coal, oil and gas are simply replaced by wood, the climate goals cannot be achieved. In addition, depending on the technology, fine dust and soot can cause high levels of pollutants in the environment.” For reasons of forest protection, wood must be used as effectively as possible. “This means that wood must be used as a material for as long, as often and as efficiently as possible,” says Mergner, for example as a building material for furniture. Burning should only be at the end of the usage chain.
Mergner also explains that the annual CO₂ emissions from wood burning in Germany, at around 60 million tons, are already greater than the annual CO₂ storage capacity of the forest in this country. The BN boss also points out that burning wood produces 368 kilos of CO₂ per megawatt hour of heat. “That is more than the extremely climate-damaging energy sources natural gas with around 200 kilos of CO₂ per megawatt hour of heat and hard coal with around 340 kilos of CO₂ per megawatt hour of heat,” says Mergner. “In addition, it is tens of times higher than the low-CO₂ heat generated from heat pumps that are powered by electricity from photovoltaics or wind power.”