The wood energy sector in Brittany - Dossier no. 7, October 2013

Heating with wood, now known as wood-energy, is the oldest and most widely shared form of renewable energy. In Brittany, it is a local resource for thousands of individual households using logs, over 300 boiler rooms using wood in shredded form, and a growing number of installations running on wood pellets. Today, the main environmental challenges facing this type of energy are to better control wood combustion in order to limit pollutant emissions into the air and improve energy efficiency. Sustainable management of woodland and forest resources is also an important issue. Wood heating is a renewable energy that has long been well established in Brittany among private households. Collective heating systems have emerged more recently. These could be developed further in the region. Provided we succeed in mobilizing the forest and hedgerow resources that can be used for energy purposes, in compliance with the rules of sustainable management. Despite being carbon-neutral, wood energy does emit pollutants during combustion. These include fine particles and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, known for their impact on health and the climate. But these emissions can be reduced by using the right fuel and heating equipment. In Brittany, the wood-energy sector is the focus of a number of initiatives designed to help boiler plants develop while limiting their impact on air quality. There are also initiatives to encourage private individuals to equip themselves with more efficient appliances and to purchase good-quality fuel