Emission certificates thanks to residual wood in Brazil

MIL Energia Renovável’s 9-megawatt power plant, which has been fully owned by MIL Madeiras since May 2021, supplies around 70 % of the households of the neighbouring city of Itacoatiara with electricity. The power plant also supplies the production site of Precious Woods Amazon with about 2 MW. All of the power plant’s electricity (heat for wood seasoning and electrical energy) is generated from the residual wood of the PW Amazon sawmill, i.e., renewable biomass. The company has been fully consolidated since 1 June 2021, so that a comparison with the previous year is not meaningful.

MIL Energia not only produces electricity and steam or heat. Our activities resulted in a total of 33 694 tons of CO₂ equivalents in 2022, which can be counted towards carbon reduction and thus contribute to global climate protection. However, the 2021 amount will not be reflected in the figures until 2025 at the earliest, as the revenue is delayed.

The biomass power plant in Itacoatiara remains very important for Precious Woods: firstly, from an operational perspective because this results in cheaper electricity and heat procurement costs; secondly due to the opportunity to sell residual wood from timber harvesting and as a by-product of the sawmill; and thirdly because complete utilization of the harvested wood makes an important contribution to avoiding CO₂ emissions and can therefore replace heat and power generation using fossil fuels.

Itacoatiara has been connected to the regional power grid since March 2023. For MIL Energia, this means that along with its own consumption, electricity deliveries to other contractual partners are now important. Because the electricity price in Brazil has fallen to an all-time low due to hydropower plant availability, we have been producing less electricity since March 2023 and selling the biomass we do not need to third-party customers. This will reduce sales and earnings in the short term.