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Trends in energy performance of the Swedish pulp and paper industry: 1984–2011

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Abstract

The Swedish pulp and paper industry accounts for half of industrial final energy use in Sweden and 2.3 % in EU-27. On the basis of a disaggregated set of physical production data, a Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index decomposition method is applied to disentangle the influence from activity, structure and energy efficiency improvement (EEI) on its fuel, electricity and primary energy use. An extended analysis tracks the fossil energy use and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to discern past and present developments of industrial decarbonisation. In 1984–2011, the total production output increased by 49 %, whereas growth in primary energy use was limited to 26 %. Compared with an activity-based scenario, 50 PJ of primary energy use has been avoided through EEI and 6 PJ through structural change. The production has become oriented towards more electricity-intensive but less fuel-intensive segments. The electricity use EEI was negligible until year 2000 but sizeable thereafter as it started to outpace the counteracting impact from structural change. Results are consistent with previous bottom-up evaluations, and the policy context is further elaborated in a discussion about the role of relevant energy and climate policies in facilitating the enhanced EEI observed over the last decade.

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Notes

  1. This categorization includes all paper and board products, market pulp and non-market pulp, the latter referred to as pumped pulp (Wiberg 1985, 2008; Wiberg and Forslund 2012).

  2. In 1984–2011, internal electricity generation from back pressure turbines increased from 2.4 to 5.5 TWh, and its share of the PPI’s total electricity use increased from 16 to 26 % (Wiberg and Forslund 2012). See also Ericsson et al (2011).

  3. Available statistics does not provide capacity utilisation rates at sub-sector level. For the Swedish manufacturing industry it was 91 % (2007) and from levels of 75–80 % (2009) it recovered to 88 % (2011) (SCB 2013). An estimated 3 % decrease for PPI is supported by data on production output and capacity (SFIF 2013; Wiberg and Forslund 2012).

  4. Recovered fibre pulp has an exceptionally low specific final fuel use in 1984 compared with later survey years (see Appendix). This category has been excluded to avoid distortion of the weighted average for the pulp grades.

  5. Chemical pulp mills generate electricity from spent liquor in recovery boilers and back pressure turbines while thermomechanical pulp and paper mills use mainly solid biofuel boilers and back pressure turbines. Exhaust lower-pressure steam is used for drying pulp and paper. The allocation procedures in Wiberg (1985–2008) and Wiberg and Forslund (2012) imply that annual average fuel-to-electricity conversion factors are in the range of 1.15–1.25. Thus, the savings from combined heat and power are allocated to the electricity generation (Phylipsen et al. 1998).

  6. The Swedish PPI uses some 20 different fuels. On the product level these fuels are merged into the main categories: external fuel oil, external other, internal spent liquor, internal bark and internal other. The large category “external other” represent a mix of many non-fossil but also fossil fuels (Wiberg and Forslund 2012).

  7. Compared to final fuel use, total fuel use includes fuels for internal electricity generation (see Figure 3). Thus, the numbers are somewhat higher, e.g. 166 vs. 156 PJ (1984) and 217 vs. 195 PJ (2007).

  8. This estimate is based on an emission factor of 0.036 kg CO2/kWh purchased electricity, being representative for the Swedish grid electricity mix in 2008 (Gode et al. 2011). Emissions factors for fossil fuels are as follows: fuel oil (76.2 kg CO2/GJ), coal (90.7 kg CO2/GJ), LPG (65.1 kg CO2/GJ) and natural gas (56.5 kg CO2/GJ).

  9. PFE firms must: conduct energy audits; have certified energy management systems (ISO 50001); have procedures for energy efficient procurement and project planning; undertake and report electricity savings actions. Firms are exempted from the minimum tax on industrial electricity use of the EU energy tax directive (0.5 Euro/MWh) and are required to achieve electricity savings at a level expected had the tax been in place (Stenqvist and Nilsson 2012). PFE will expire in 2014 according to EU state-aid rules for environmental protection.

  10. It corresponds to 2 % of Sweden’s total electricity use and the annual generation capacity of the country’s oldest operating nuclear reactor.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been funded by the Swedish Energy Agency’s research programme General Energy Systems Studies (AES).

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  1. Environmental and Energy Systems Studies, Department of Technology and Society, Faculty of Engineering, Lund University, P.O. Box 118, 221 00, Lund, Sweden

    Christian Stenqvist

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Correspondence to Christian Stenqvist.

Appendix

Appendix

Table 1 Specific energy consumption (SECs) for 27 pulp, paper and paperboard products in the Swedish pulp and paper industry in the years 1984, 2000 and 2011
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Stenqvist, C. Trends in energy performance of the Swedish pulp and paper industry: 1984–2011. Energy Efficiency 8, 1–17 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-014-9276-4

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