Following William Strauss’ keynote presentation during the upcoming Wood Bioenergy Conference & Expo, he will lead a panel discussion called “Is It Time to Move to Pellets 2.0?” The discussion will address the technical and economic status of advanced pellet technologies.

Panelists will show how torrefied pellets can break through and compete in the global industrial pellet sector, despite failed promises to do so thanks to a variety of reasons: technological shortcomings, their inability to compete with white pellets on a dollars per delivered energy cost basis, and to some degree, market inertia in a sector where more than 25 million tonnes of white pellets will be used in power stations in 2020.

Advanced steam exploded or torrefied pellets have higher energy per cubic meter, some exhibit hydrophobic characteristics, and in general they require less modifications to pulverized coal power plants that want to co-fire or fully switch from coal to pellet fuel.