The Portucel Soporcel group is the country's leading producer of energy from a renewable source, forest biomass. It generates approximately 65% of its electricity from these resources, optimizing the efficiency of its use in the manufacture of intermediate and end products. The main sources of this fuel used by the Group for generating power are lignin, separated during the pulp production process, bark and other waste wood obtained during handling at the mills or in the forest.
The Group's energy strategy is to use biomass to build for itself an increasingly important role in Portugal's production of renewable energy. Its track record shows that between 2000 and 2010 the Group achieved an impressive 46% cut in CO2 emissions from fossil fuels per ton of output, thanks to investment in minimizing the use of fossil fuels.
Seeking to follow this strategy, the Group has made energy sector investments one of its main priorities. July 2009 saw the first sales of electricity to the national grid from its new natural gas combined cycle heat and power plant, built primarily to power the new paper mill at the Setúbal industrial complex, with a rated capacity of 80 MW.
This was followed at the end of the same year by two new biomass power stations, with a power rating of 12.5 MW each, at the Cacia and Setúbal sites, which also started feeding power into the national grid. And lastly, at the end of the third quarter of 2010, the new biomass cogeneration turbine started operation at the Figueira da Foz industrial complex.
Portugal's leading producer of biomass energy
The Group is Portugal's leading producer of biomass 
energy in cogeneration plants, a process which generates both heat and power, making it more efficient than conventional plants which produce only electricity.
The Company operates as a producer and supplier of forest biomass and wood waste, and has started up two new biomass power plants at its Cacia and Setúbal sites, as well as a new steam turbo-generator as part of the modification of the biomass cogeneration plant in Figueira da Foz.
These units represent a significant contribution to the national energy balance and the power produced from this renewable source is carbon (CO2) neutral.
The Group's power production fits into its overall scheme of integrated forestry operations, combining concerns for biodiversity conservation with the production of raw material for manufacturing, and the use of forest biomass for generating energy.
The Portucel Soporcel group enjoys today a leading position in the sector as Portugal's top producer of "green energy" from biomass, a renewable source, accounting for 51% of the country's output of this type of energy (Dec 2010).
In 2010, the Group recorded gross power generation of 1 696 GWh, corresponding to 3.4% of Portugal's total electricity output.
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