Article by Nicolas Bouziot, Biomass Technology Manager at ANDRITZ Feed and Biofuel
Biomass pelleting has never been about pellets alone. It has always been about making the difficult usable, turning inconsistent, low-value or overlooked materials into a reliable fuel within the global energy mix.
Triggered by the oil crisis in the 1970s and supported by subsidies, incentives and regulation, the industry has grown over the past 50 years to reach a global consumption of over 55 million tons of wood pellets in 2025.
That same logic explains where the industry started, and where it is now going.
For a long time, the story was straightforward. Wood residues from sawmills were available in large volumes, but in their raw form they were impractical to trade globally as a commodity. High moisture content, low density and poor handling characteristics made them inefficient to transport and difficult to use as a fuel. The pelleting process addressed this directly, drying and densifying the material to create a consistent, energy-dense product that could move beyond a local by-product and into wider use.
What turned this into a real market, however, was standardization. Once quality frameworks were introduced, pellets could be traded, shipped and integrated into large-scale energy systems with a level of predictability that did not exist before. Combined with the global drive to decarbonize energy systems, this is what established biomass as a scalable solution, not just a local opportunity.
Today, that foundation is still in place, but the role of pelleting is clearly expanding.
From optimization to adaptation
In many regions, wood-based pelleting has reached a level of maturity. While supply chains are in place and the technology is well understood, and the industry has spent years improving process efficiency, biomass supply chains are increasingly being challenged from a sustainability perspective.
That focus on efficiency remains important; producing pellets with less energy, fewer losses and more stable operations is still a priority, especially at industrial scale.
The bigger shift is happening elsewhere. New regulations in the EU and Japan are challenging the type and source of biomass used in fuel pellets. At the same time, the increasing cost of raw materials, compared to the price of energy the market is willing to pay, means the industry is being asked to process a broader range of biomass, not just optimize the materials it already knows.
Why wood is no longer enough
The reliance on wood residues made sense at the start, since the material was widely available, relatively homogeneous and easier to process. However, as the market has expanded beyond wood residues, the industry has come under increasing scrutiny regarding the sustainability of the pellets produced.
Agricultural residues represent a far larger, more sustainable resource base. In many regions, they are underused or even seen as problematic. Straw, bagasse, corn residues and similar materials are widely available, often locally, and offer a clear opportunity to expand biomass utilization in a sustainable way while supporting rural communities.
The difficulty is that agricultural residues behave very differently from wood residues.
Lower density, higher ash content and elements such as chlorine and potassium introduce challenges during both the pelleting process and combustion. These materials are also more variable, have seasonal availability and can be more abrasive, which impacts both equipment and process stability. For a long time, these factors made large-scale utilization more difficult and less attractive.
What is changing now is not the material itself, but the regulatory framework for solid biofuels and the willingness of end users to adapt their processes.
Expanding the system, not replacing it
This is where the industry is moving away from a single-feedstock mindset.
Instead of asking agricultural residues to replace wood entirely, there is a growing focus on integrating them into the global energy mix. Improved cleaning, washing and conditioning steps are being introduced, helping to stabilize these materials, while blending strategies allow different feedstocks to be combined in a controlled way.
This approach is more flexible and realistic. It does not require a perfect feedstock, it builds a system that can handle variation.
It also changes the geography of production. In regions such as Southeast Asia, India and parts of Latin America, pellet production is increasingly linked to agricultural residues rather than forestry. This creates more localized value chains and makes better use of the biomass available.
Turning difficult biomass into usable fuel
Some of the clearest examples of this shift come from materials that were previously considered unusable on the global stage.
Palm oil residues, such as empty fruit bunches, have been produced in large quantities for years as a waste product, but their characteristics have made them challenging to use. By combining steps such as washing, thermal treatment, and pelletization, it is now possible to improve their behavior and convert them into a viable solid biofuel.
What matters here is not just the specific case, but the principle behind it.
The industry is no longer selecting only the most convenient biomass; it is developing processes to upgrade various agricultural residues and waste products into quality solid biofuels ready for use in the global energy mix.
That is a fundamental shift, significantly expanding the range of sustainable resources.
Moving beyond densification
Once that shift happens, the next step becomes more obvious; if you are already modifying the feedstock, you can also start modifying the fuel itself.
This is where advanced processing approaches come in. Techniques that introduce a level of pre-carbonization, often associated with black pellets, are designed to do more than densify the material. They aim to improve fixed carbon content, energy density, grindability and the ability to store solid biofuels outside, targeting a new group of customers.
These improvements are not theoretical; they respond to very specific needs of new customer groups that have identified biofuels as a way to decarbonize their energy mix and meet net-zero CO₂ targets.
In industries beyond heat and power production, such as cement and metallurgy, replacing fossil fuels requires materials that meet different performance standards. At the same time, the development of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) and maritime fuels is creating increasing demand for consistent, high-quality biomass inputs.
Pelleting is only one step in these value chains, but it plays a key role in making biomass suitable for further processing.
A continuous evolution
Looking at the industry as a whole, the direction is clear.
Pelleting started by making wood residues usable. It is now applying the same logic to agricultural biomass, and increasingly to more complex and challenging materials. In parallel, it is beginning to move toward fuels with improved properties.
This is not a shift away from what came before; it is a continuation of the same idea, applied at a different scale and level of sophistication.
Where it goes next
The future of pelleting will not be defined by a single feedstock or process. It will depend on how well the industry can continue to adapt to different types of biomass and end-use requirements.
Efficiency will remain essential, but it will be matched by flexibility. The ability to process a wider range of materials, and to tailor fuels for specific applications, will define the next phase of growth.
In that sense, pelleting is becoming less of a standalone solution and more of an enabling step within a broader biofuels value chain.
And that brings it back to where it started.
The value of pelleting has never been in the pellet itself; it lies in its ability to transform challenging biomass into a sustainable fuel.