DEVELOPMENT AND PERSPECTIVES OF FOREST ENERGY CHIPS IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC

This article summarizes the information and its partial contribution to the wider issue of the economy of renewable natural resources (RES) in the Czech Republic (CR). In the conditions of the CR, RES are non-fossil natural energy sources, i.e. hydropower, wind, solar radiation, solid biomass and biogas, environment energy, geothermal energy and liquid bio-fuel energy. In terms of the technically utilizable potential for the CR, biomass is the most perspective RES for the production of energy and heat. With the use of available information sources and databases, the authors analyze the development of the market for forest energy chips from 2001 to 2010 in terms of the balance of currently consumed volumes, available volume and the ratio in achieving the partial indicative objective of a 8% share of RES in the gross domestic consumption of electricity up to 2010. Initial points are evaluated for the potential increase of the ratio of forest chips in the energy mix of RES in the CR and the further development of energy chips. 'I he final output is the construction of the supply curve using methodological procedures of the conjunctural analysis and modelling with selected trend functions.