Promoting renewable energies - RETS Project

Solid Biomass Technology
Introduction
Plants use carbon dioxide, water and solar energy as raw
materials to generate biomass. Biomass fuel comes in
many forms including wood, logs, bark, sawdust, straw
and peat (solid biomass),organic waste, manure (wet
biomass),sugar and starch plants(beet, cereals etc.) and
oil crops (rape, sunflower etc.).Biomass fuels can be
used to generate heat, co-generate heat and electricity or
manufacture liquid biofuels for transport applications. At a
first approximation the carbon dioxide released during the
combustion of biomass is neutral as it originated in the
atmosphere.
Average holding size in the public sector (e.g.
municipalities, communes etc.) is much larger where
holding sizes of the order of 1000 hectares are common.
These are typically managed to meet local needs. Public
forest ownership is particularly dominant in most of the
eastern and south-eastern EU Member States.
Agriculture is also becoming an important source of
biomass/bio-fuels as the industry is now encouraged to
grow products to supply current market demand using,
for example, set-aside land and becoming ‘Energy
farmers’.
The European Biomass Association suggests that
biomass energy production could expand to 220 Mtoe
per annum by 2020.
Employment, market development and generating
capacity
The total primary energy production from biomass (2010)
across Europe was reported as being approximately
80 Mtoe with leaders being Germany, France, Sweden
and Finland. Annual solid biomass electricity production
was almost 70,000 million GWh (i.e. 70,000 TWh) across
the region with Germany, Finland, Sweden and Poland
leading the league of generators.
It is estimated that employment linked with the
manufacture and deployment of this technology across
the EU is in excess of 270,000. In general countries at
the top of the installed capacity league table have
mirrored the technological roll-out with jobs.
The market is valued to be around €25,000 million.
Biomass boiler, Wales
EU resource assessment
The forests and other woodlands of the EU account for
approximately 1.7million km 2 of the Union’s surface area.
This is more than more than 40% of total land mass.
These areas are split between private (60%) and public
(40%) ownership. Average holding size in the 16 million
private sector owners is of the order of 13 hectares
however the mode is typically less than 5 hectares.
Research, development and demonstration in the EU
The key areas for biomass research are:
Maximising resource utilisation e.g. use of branch
bark;
Environmentally benign production of BTL (a type
of bio-fuel made from wood or straw);
Development of reliable, cost effective and fuel
flexible biomass gasification technologies for the
small to medium scale (100 MW) power
production;
Efficient emissions and particulates removal;
Algal fuel sources;
New or improved biomass harvesting storage and
logistics.
RETS Compendium – © 2012 RETS Consortium
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