From the Director’s Desk: Pellet Fuels Institute Board Gathers in Colorado, Rebooting the PFI Heating Decree Days Index Next Week
PFI Board Gathers in Colorado
Last Week the Pellet Fuels Institute gathered for its fall board meeting in Broomfield, Colorado, hosted by PFI-member Lignetics at their corporate offices. In addition to the standard fare of operating the organization, reviewing preliminary budgets for the coming year, and weighing 2026 conference venue options, the board committed significant time to both international and domestic policy and regulatory fronts. An hour was dedicated to a discussion about the European Union Deforestation Regulation where the board welcomed Scott Jones, CEO of the Forest Landowners Association, and Todd Bush and Christian Rahbek from CM Biomass. Each offered their perspective on EUDR, how it will impact the forest products supply chain, and how the market is preparing to comply. Opinions were shared on the likelihood of a delay, and at press time at least one press outlet (see Industry News) was reporting that the EU Council had agreed to delay implementation by one year. The board also reviewed PFI’s policy and regulatory watch list and heard updates from PFI’s DC counsel Pat Rita. With Congress on recess until after the election, most policy matters are currently on pause, and Rita offered that movement on any notable piece of legislation was unlikely until the new Congress begins in January. Noting the policy and regulatory matters the organization is actively tracking paired with the new Congress the board committed to returning to D.C. for a 2025 fly-in, perhaps in time to see some cherry blossoms in late March.
After the business portion of the board meeting, board member Frank Kvietok (Lignetics) provided a tour of the Lignetics research and development facility at a nearby facility in Broomfield. Kvietok introduced his team and outlined some of the types of research activities Lignetics conducts there.
The day concluded with a friendly round of golf at the gorgeous Fossil Trace golf course in Golden, Colorado. The course is set in a former mine and boasts dinosaur fossils viewable during the play.
Rebooting the PFI Heating Degree Day Index Next Week
Next week the Pellet Fuels Institute Heating Degree Day Index will return to the PFI website homepage. The Index is meant to provide a quick, easy-to-consume update to the accumulating heating degree days (HDD) as the heating season progresses. Wood pellet sales correlate tightly to HDDs and as regions surge ahead or fall behind in their average accumulation of HDDs so do wood pellet sales.
During last year’s record-setting warm winter, I and some regular PFI HDD index followers began to suspect problems with the data set. Geographies that were reporting and experiencing record-setting warmth were showing up as having accumulated more heating-degree days than the year prior. The team at Lignetics even ran a comparison from the data used for the PFI HDD Index (Climate Prediction Center, NOAA) and found a few points of departure.
As data began to accumulate early this fall a comparison between the NOAA data feed and the data from Lignetics private feed was completed. Moving forward, the PFI HDD Index will be populated for the same geographies using the data feed from our member organization, Lignetics.
The report will still highlight the percentage above or below the accumulated Heating Degree Days to date when compared to last year and a ten-year average.
Below is the HDD Index for this week. The PFI HDD Index will go live next Tuesday, October 22nd.
