Expressions of Interest: Residues2Revenues 2023

Early expressions of interest to present at next year’s Residues2Revenues 2023 event are now been called for. This year saw record numbers of forestry, wood harvesting, timber products companies and wood residues extraction and handling specialists turn up in Rotorua, New Zealand. The venue, with conference, pre and post conference workshops and exhibitions sold out.

With developments in biomass utilisation so rapidly unfolding right now, delegate and exhibitor feedback requested a follow up in 2023. The dates have been set, 25-26 July 2023, Rotorua, New Zealand. As we did last year, live streaming of the event is also being set up for those international companies unable to get into New Zealand to attend the event in person.

Background:

The Residues2Revenues (R2R) event that was run in late July 2022 saw an amazing turnout from across the forestry and wood residues industries. It was a decade since the last wood residues programme had been run by the Forest Industry Engineering Association (FIEA). Over 350 delegates, both in person and remotely were involved. It was a true testament to the growing recognition by forest owners, wood processors and those involved in log harvesting and wood transport, that demand for alternatives to fossil fuels is right now, transforming the forestry sector.

The 2022 conference, pre and post conference workshops and exhibitions (inside and outside the venue) showcased new innovations and smart operating practices being used, locally and internationally, to harvest sort, dry, transport and sell forest residues, bin wood, offcuts left on landings, short length or malformed logs that weren’t meeting MDF, pulp-mill or chip export log specifications and sawmill residues.

Details on the expectations and requirements from a growing number of larger industrial scale heat and energy users who’d either made the switch to biofuels were outlined to those attending along with early discussions on a raft of options that could be set up to aggregate regional fuel supplies to ensure consistency of quality of the product and supply.

Discussions at the 2022 event also looked at how prevailing supply models to progressively drive scale and supply chain reliability could be changed. It was felt that growers, processors and in some cases consumers, all needed to be part of any future supply contract models.

The clear message from R2R 2022 was that demand for wood residues or biofuels is increasing exponentially, that much greater volumes of woody biomass were needed, that the economics for supply are really starting to stack up and that the forestry industry was committed to ensure that woody biomass would be available to meet current and the projected future demand.

What’s planned for 2023?

The 2022 R2R event barely scratched the surface. Feedback to the event provided significant guidance by all those attending and firm recommendations for a 2023 follow-up. Commercial announcements have already been made on major boiler conversions being planned for biofuels. More are in the pipeline.

Prevailing supply models are being discussed at a regional and corporate level to progressively drive the scale and supply chain reliability required, as discussed at R2R 2022. And since the 2022 event ran, the NZ Government launched its Forestry and Wood Processing Industry Transformation Plan. It’s the country’s first strategy dedicated to boosting the forestry and wood processing sector in over a decade. And, as anticipated, better utilisation of bioenergy is very much a cornerstone of the new ITP.

Again, the timing’s going to be spot on. Residues2Revenues 2023 will be able to expand on key points made by presenters in 2022, cover recent technology advancements and dig much deeper into new and recent developments for co-ordinating the harvesting and extraction of wood residues and aggregation of regional biofuel supplies.

Interested in presenting?

For 2022, the conference programme and space to present as part of the workshops filled very quickly. If interested in presenting next year, please get back to Brent Apthorp ( brent.apthorp@fiea.org.nz) BEFORE we break for the summer break, by Friday 23 December.