Heating by means of pellets is becoming more and more popular throughout the world. One of the main reasons to support this tendency is the constant increase of prices for traditional fuel types. This particularly refers to the countries that don't have oil and gas resources of their own. Of course, the equipment for heating with pellets is not cheap, but whenever it is purchased and installed, the process of heating becomes completely automated. Besides, storage of fuel granules does not imply any particular requirements. Pellet boilers are constructed with special bunkers to store the fuel. Thereat the bunker itself can be chosen according to one's demand. For example, as to the volumetric capacity, there are bunkers where pellets are put for a whole year, for half of the heating season or even for just one week or several days. The price of the fuel granules in Europe varies from 150 Euros to 230 Euros per ton. One kilogram of pellets can substitute for half a litre of liquid fuel, while heating with granules, to a great extent, decreases the quantity of harmful emissions to the atmosphere and guarantees full explosion safety. All these factors explain why the specialists are so sure that by 2020 the annual demand of this kind of fuel will make approximately 80-135 million tons, and that's just in Europe.
Ukraine is an agro-industrial country, therefore it possesses a good raw material base to produce pellets, from wood wastes and agricultural wastes as well. The development paces of Ukrainian pellets' market are behind European ones, nevertheless they can be characterized as stable. Substantially, the manufacturers of fuel granules in Ukraine work for export. Home consumption makes up only 5%. According to the opinion of the market participants, there exists a range of problems that prevent broader distribution of pellets within Ukraine. Among them they name high prices of the necessary equipment, lack of full crediting system, difficulties with heat energy sale. Moreover, some experts claim that inactive actions of the government to support the market of bioenergetics make an important inhibitive factor. The so called "green" tariff has been valid in Ukraine for relatively a long time. It is a reduced tariff for consumers and manufacturers of alternative fuel. However, some experts say that this tariff is not enough to support the market. The thing is that Ukraine needs international pouring of money to really stimulate the sector of biofuel. And it is clear that potential investors are waiting for advantageous offers.
At this stage the manufacturers of Ukrainian pellets themselves try to arrange the sale of the goods produced. For example, at Ukrainian Biofuel Portal there was created a special data base that enlists all the Ukrainian manufacturers and suppliers of pellets made from sunflower husk. Today about one hundred of Ukrainian enterprises produce pellets from this input. The web site offers the product catalogue which contains the description and price of goods. Plus, at the portal one can find the full contacts of the definite company.
Such data base allows to establish selling to European countries. As due to export, the quantity of companies producing pellets form sunflower husk increased to 50% for less than a year. The quantity of suppliers grew up to one third. By the way, the buyers and suppliers themselves can communicate professionally at Ukrainian Biofuel Portal, thus discussing current problems of Ukrainian biofuel market and suggesting the ways to solve them.