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LVM Stores Wood Chips for the Upcoming Heating Season in Its Storage Yards

To ensure a regular and stable supply of energy wood chips to municipal boiler houses and other customers, wood chips are delivered to the energy wood chip yards of JSC “Latvia's State Forests” (LVM). This year, LVM plans to sell a total of approximately 850 000 cubic metres of energy wood chips, this way promoting the use of renewable resources for energy production and strengthening Latvia's energy independence.

In 2024, LVM organized several energy chip sales procedures with different delivery periods, pricing principles and volume offers to meet the interests of different market participants. Cooperation partners have been informed that LVM will organize another sales procedure this October for deliveries in the heating season from November 2024 to April 2025.

“Customers' needs are diverse, and the delivery schedule of energy chips is most often uneven. For example, there are boiler houses that are not heated in the summer, but intensively heated in the winter, but the storage space in the city centre is limited. That is why wood chip storage yards are of great importance – this way, municipal boiler houses can constantly access the necessary amount of wood chips and provide residents with a continuous heat supply. The storage yards also serve us as a kind of safety warehouse, if the equipment breaks down in the forest or weather conditions, such as snow or sleet, sharply limit access to this resource in winter,” says Ojārs Keziks, Manager of LVM Energy Wood Products. 

Currently, LVM stores wood chips in two wood chip yards, one of which is located in Kurzeme and one in Zemgale. Each area can store up to 50 000 bulk cubic metres of wood chips. From April to September, wood chips are brought to the yards, but from October to March, during the heating season, they are gradually removed, according to the customers’ delivery schedules. Also, the volume to be delivered to the storage areas is determined according to the customers’ delivery schedule, compiled in advance for the following month.

LVM produces energy wood chips from tree biomass – both from felling residues, such as branches, tops, trimmings, small trees, needles, and from the growth and small wood that remains in the forest after harvesting roadside and ditch growth and caring for young trees.