“I don’t have any more, sorry. “There, in terms of delivery, we are over four to five months…” These are the types of answers that a customer can currently hear looking for bois of heating. Especially in the Lower Rhine “because the Germans are very afraid of not having enough gas to finish the winter”, testifies Christophe Glad.
“In twenty-three years of career”, the president of the trade union group of firewood merchants ofAlsace never seen such a request. “Here even more than elsewhere, but the trend is national. People are coming back to the woods now, ”he testifies again. A feeling supported by figures.
In 2021, nearly 400,000 pieces intended for heating using this energy were sold in France. “Including 200,000 devices for pellets, which have since represented the majority of the market”, specifies Axel Richard. The head of the sector within the Renewable Energies Syndicate (Ser) confirms this: “There is an economic trend to return to wood”.
“The cheapest energy for heating”
For several reasons. First and foremost economic. “It is the cheapest energy for heating. For one kW/H, it came to about 4 cents including tax in March 2022 if logs were used delivered in bulk and 7 cents for pellets. Against 20 cents for electricity, 17 cents for propane, 16 cents for fuel or even 10 cents for natural gas. And since then, the prices of fossil fuels have greatly increased since then. » In even greater proportions than pelletsthat is to say.
Logs have not escaped inflation either. The stere (1 m3) cut, in 33 or 50 cm, could be found at 60 € in 2020. Today, it flirts more with 80 €. “On average, the stere took between 10 and 15 euros”, nuance Christophe Glad, justifying all this by the usual reasons such as the increase in production costs. For example, he is forced to go through industrial dryers, “otherwise I could not follow with natural drying”.
Another argument in favor of wood is its accessibility. “There are many people who have their own piece of forest, make it for themselves and resell it in the parallel circuit. If we add to that all the professionals, it’s really not difficult to find them, ”abounds Axel Richard. The market, even tense in certain regions currently, has very little chance of turning into a shortage. This is not the case for certain competing fossil fuels…
Finally, wood is also seen as an additional and comfortable mode of heating. We come back to the famous 400,000 parts sold in 2020, of which only 20,000 boilers. Almost all of them helped by state aid schemes, says “Maprimerenov”.
“We observed a craze for stoves and inserts as soon as they came out of confinement”, recalls Marc Labattu, the manufacturer’s president. French Turbo Cast Iron. “Customers were coming out of confinement and looking to improve their habitat with a user-friendly device. With teleworking becoming more and more frequent, it has accelerated even further. Then from September 2021, we had a new flow of buyers, linked to tensions on energy prices. They were looking to reduce their bill and an energy mix”
His company, located in Pessac (Gironde) should thus “increase its turnover by 50% this year”. “The challenge now, for us, is to follow this strong demand”, blows the manager, delighted to see a dynamic market when he was “at a cruising speed a few years ago”. Can the trend last? “We don’t know yet, it will also depend on price changes for other heating methods”, replies Axel Richard, recalling that wood is a renewable energy.
As part of the ecological transition, France has set itself the objective of having 9.5 million homes heated with wood with efficient appliances in 2023. In 2022, there were 7 million according to the figures of the label ” Green Flame”.