A first 30 % drop in Maprimerenov ‘aid in April 2024, followed by another decrease of 30 %, on January 1, 2025. The tumble of the subsidies granted to individuals for the purchase of a wood heating begins to worry the sector.
The impact is already felt in sales: compared to peaks reached in 2022, they were divided by four last year. The boilers’ market is the most impacted, with an activity down 70 % in 2023 and 30 % in 2024. “What is the state looking for by sacrificing the energy of the French purchasing power?” “, Ask the professional organizations of the sector, in a forum published at the end of January.
7.8 million devices installed
With a park of 7.8 million devices installed (closed homes, inserts, stoves, stoves and boilers operating with logs or pellets), wood heating is the first renewable energy in terms of heat production, with 73 TWh in 2023.
“The public authorities do not hear us and we have the feeling of being unjustly mistreated”, Summarizes Eric Vial, the director general of Propellet, who represents the actors of the wood pellet. However, the sector believes that it is adorned with many virtues.
The least CO2 heating mode
According to Ademe, wood is the least CO2 heating mode: only 30 g of CO2 per kWh against 49 g for heat pumps, 100 g for heat networks, 147 g for simple electric radiators, 227 g for gas and 324 g for fuel oil.
It is also the most economical energy, by far. “” Wood heating costs 3.3 times cheaper than electricity and between 30 to 40 % less than natural gas and fuel oil “Recalls Maëlle Ricard, director of operations at Boisreduc, a price comparator.
Contested pollution levels
But today these arguments are no longer enough. “” There are small music that rises and are all unfavorable to wood-energy “Says Jules Nyssen, the president of the renewable energy union (SER). The sector drags behind him a reputation for a big pollutor, which he has trouble getting rid of. According to CITEPA, the organization which carries out national inventories of greenhouse gas emissions, wood heating would represent 57 % of fine particle emissions (PM2.5) in 2022.
Data disputed by the sector. “” The impact of certain sectors such as air and the maritime is strongly reduced and confusion continues to be maintained between emission estimates and air quality, which meets specific criteria », Esides Frédéric Coirier, Managing Director of the Poujoulat Group and Vice-President of the SER.
The union highlights other studies, believing that “ The share of wood heating in the concentration of PM2.5 is less than 20 % ». The replacement of old devices should further reduce pollution, provides the Poujoulat boss, supporting figures. According to ADEME, emissions from fine wood energy particles decreased by 59 % between 1990 and 2022 thanks to the modernization of the park and better insulation of housing. Between 2012 and 2024, the number of devices increased by 15 % while the consumption of firewood decreased by 20 %. “The same effort could be prosecuted by 2035”, he promise.
Brussels back machine
But the European Commission would like to harden standards. In November, she even mentioned a project aimed at prohibiting the sale, from 2027, of heating devices which would not be clad in electronics to automatically control the combustion. “This would amount to abolishing 80 % of the current offer, as manufacturers are not ready,” Do we explain to the ser. The text was to be presented on February 12, but the European executive had to backtrack by pushing it back, until later in the face of the opposition of a majority of MEPs.
Professionals are pushing a relief phew, without being completely reassured. Because in Paris, the relations between the wood heating sector and the public authorities are not in good shape (Read the box). Jules Nyssen recalls that at the time of the 2022 energy crisis, the government urged the sector to build new capacities as quickly as possible. Since then, a dozen production factories have emerged, three or four have been planned this year and as much in 2026.
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Tension with the public authorities
Relations between the wood heating sector and the public authorities are not in good shape, in particular with the General Secretariat for Ecological Planning (SGPE). “According to his calculations, there will not be enough biomass for everyone, which assumes that to sufficiently decarbon certain sectors such as industry and transport, it will be necessary to remove from the material from others, as wood heating ”, Summarizes Jules Nyssen, the president of the Syndicate of Renewable Energies (SER) who challenges this scenario in block.
Questioned, in early February, during a conference on renewable heat, Frédérik Jobert, the deputy secretary general for ecological planning, maintained the hypotheses of his closure, despite the annoyance of his neighbors to the gallery. “At least 80 % of the volumes of wood energy come from the informal economy or self -consumption, underlines Éric Vialle, director general of Propellet, who represents the actors of wood pellets. And it is not by lowering the aids with wood pellet devices that we will have more biomass for planes. »»
(tagstotranslate) Energy transition