The commissioner of this thesis was a forest energy business enterprise. The commissioner wanted a statistical survey of the profitability of covering roadside energy wood storages. The survey is based on the commissioner’s material comprised of attributes of energy wood storages and wood chip batches supplied collected in a database.

This thesis is a case study concerning chip batches supplied to a power plant in 2014 and 2015. The difference in the mean value of the heating value was sought as repeating on a yearly basis with covered storages giving higher values. The specific unit examined was a megawatt hour per ton for the heating value and a loose cubic meter (l-m³) for the storage size.

Qualitative and quantitative statistical analyses were employed. Storages and batches were categorized by size, age and time of supply. In both years inspected the batches from covered storages had higher mean heating value in the classes “500–699 l-m³” and “supplied after the winter period”. These results were also tested to be statistically significant.

As a result of this thesis the commissioner is recommended to favor batches from covered storages when supplying wood chips after the winter period and also to cover energy wood storages of 500 to 699 l-m³ whenever reasonably possible. In other categories the values fluctuated so much as to imply that regulations and practices for storing energy wood should be examined. In addition, factors of quality for storages over 1 000 l-m³ should be inspected. The commissioner’s database could be applied to commission a larger more thorough project on the factors of quality of energy wood and chip batches.