Heat transition: Heating dispute also flared up about pellets

Status: 05/17/2023 3:52 p.m

The federal government is questioning the future of wood stoves and pellet heating systems. Their eco-balance is controversial. Criticism of the planned heating reform comes from industry and the Union, but also from the traffic light itself.

Their heat is comparatively cheap, and their installation has been subsidized by the federal government for years. But now the heating revolution is affecting fireplaces and pellet stoves. From 2024, new buildings will no longer be heated with wood. And if you have to retrofit or replace your system, you should then add a buffer storage tank, fine dust filter and a second heat source. The latter must be a solar thermal system or one with photovoltaics.

This is what the federal government’s draft for the new version of the Building Energy Act envisages. There should only be exceptions in a few cases, for example due to monument protection. The traffic light had already reduced the funding for new pellet heating systems last year.

The Union criticizes the government’s plans to convert heating systems as a disappointment.
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“There is purpose behind it”

The association of forest owners, the AGDW, calls the current draft law a “massive attack” on their own economy. Association manager Irene Seling worries about the impending loss of income. Money that would ultimately be missing in the commercial forest. The federal government is endangering “sustainable forest management in Germany,” says Seling.

Support comes from the Union. Heating with wood is sustainable and “serves for climate protection,” says Andreas Jung in an interview tagesschau.de. The CDU Federal Vice and spokesman for the Union faction for climate protection and energy is therefore against a ban in new buildings.

The restrictions on retrofitting and replacement would also have to be “cleared”. With them, the traffic light would fundamentally question heating with wood – “and that’s exactly the intention behind it,” says Jung. He also considers the fine dust debate associated with wood to be exaggerated given the already tightened standards.

The Federal Environment Agency in Dessau sees things differently. Its president, Dirk Messner, warns of emissions from smaller stoves and fireplaces in particular. In the meantime, more than 20 percent of the total particulate matter emissions are due to wood combustion, Messner told the dpa news agency. “That’s roughly the magnitude of emissions from road traffic.”

Discussion about climate balance

But criticism of the current draft law also comes from within the traffic light. The paper needs to be improved on this point, says Markus Hümpfer. The SPD member of the Bundestag and climate and energy politician refers to European guidelines. “The EU expressly allows wood to continue to be used as a renewable energy source,” says Hümpfer. And further: “You have to be happy about every oil and gas heating system that is now being exchanged.” Heating with wood is a “temporary solution”.

The SPD parliamentary group has already announced that it wants to prevent the end of new construction for wood and pellet heating systems. Hümpfer suggests leaving only the buffer storage in the planned requirements and only making dust filters mandatory in exceptional cases.

Various state governments, including the green-black government of Baden-Württemberg, are also in favor of “technology openness”.

However, it is controversial whether heating with wood deserves the label “climate-friendly”. The green-led Federal Ministry for the Environment writes on its website: “Contrary to popular belief, heating with wood is not climate-neutral.” Minister Steffi Lemke already received this in a letter from the business associations in autumn 2022. They complained that the ministry had not included the entire chain of use.

CDU politician Jung argues similarly. Pellets in Germany consist primarily of residual and waste wood. “Only CO2 that was previously bound is released,” he said. If the wood were to rot, the greenhouse gas would also be released.

The Alliance Greens, on the other hand, want to use wood for climate-friendly construction, not as fuel. Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir summed it up like this a year ago: “Sawdust can be used more sensibly, for example by processing it into chipboard panels.” The current draft law also speaks of “scarce biomass capacities” that “must be used sparingly”.

According to the Federal Environment Ministry, heating with wood is not climate-neutral. Forest farmers see it differently.
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Over 100,000 additions per year

The questions of how much wood is needed and where it comes from therefore play an important role in the assessment. According to the business-related German Pellet Institute, DEPI, the industry in Germany produced 3.5 million tons of pellets last year. Over 90 percent of this came from waste wood. The climate balance of foreign wood products is often worse.

“There is absolutely no reason to cap it now,” says CDU politician Jung. Heating with wood will “never become a mass phenomenon”.

It is true that less than six percent of all households in Germany heat with wood – and they are mainly found in rural areas. But the number of wood-burning stoves and pellet boilers has more than doubled within ten years. Most recently with an increased rate: in 2022 the increase was almost four times as high as in 2019. The trend is therefore not solely due to the energy crisis. This year, according to a DEPI forecast from March, over 100,000 new stoves and boilers are to be added.

Wood burning has been promoted in the EU for years, allegedly to mitigate climate change. It can do the opposite.
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