The Swedish Bioenergy Association (Svebio) has teamed up with Lithuanian online biomass trading platform Baltpool.

Baltpool is a biomass exchange operating in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Poland and, via partners in Denmark and Finland, has 452 members. It is based on an auction principle where buyers and sellers anonymously meet to trade biomass.

Svebio and Baltpool are currently modelling the Biomass Exchange system to ensure “convenient trade” for Swedish biomass suppliers and customers. Biomass is mainly used as a fuel for district heating in Sweden, with bioenergy accounting for almost 40% of energy consumption in the country. According to Svebio, the use of bioenergy is the main reason why Sweden managed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% from 1990 to 2014.

The Baltpool Biomass Exchange is growing and attracting increasing numbers of participants, according to the firm, which said it hopes to conclude the first contracts in Scandinavia at the start of the new heating season.

Andrius Smaliukas, CEO of Baltpool, said: “The agreement with Svebio, the partner in Sweden, is significant for the company’s expansion to foreign countries. Sweden has the deepest biomass energy traditions in the world, the size of its bioenergy market reaches 150 TWh per year (for comparison, the size of the Lithuanian bioenergy market is about 20 TWh per year), therefore cooperation with them is a great opportunity for further successful international expansion.”

“I am impressed by the Lithuanian development in the heating and power sector in the last 10 years,” commented Gustav Melin, CEO of Svebio. “Lithuania has replaced fossil fuels with bioenergy and fuels from forests and thus improved the trade balance, security of supply and not at least decreased fossil emissions.

“Lithuania is a fantastic example for most other countries in Europe that should do the same. The Baltpool trading market has been an important tool to achieve this change of energy supply to renewables.”