Biomass utilisation at local and regional level
Workshop & Study Tour
organised in conjunction with
III International Slovak Biomass Forum
City Hotel, Bratislava, Slovakia
4-5 February 2003

• The possibilities for biomass in the Candidate countries, as well as in most EU member countries, are very large, but there are financial sources needed for their implementation.
• The main benefits for biomass are job creation, regional development, environmental and economic benefits
• Biomass has the possibility to promote cross-border co-operation.
• In the development of new markets, it is very important that equipment is used as recommended by the manufacturer, and that not all sorts of biomass can be combusted in all burners.
• Standardisation work regarding both fuel and equipment is important to ensure low emissions, especially on local level, as well as larger market penetration in Europe. Standardisation is also very important to ensure higher possibilities for increased export within Europe and between member (and future member) countries.
• Targets on the EU level set in the Whitebook is good , but it is not enough for RES implementation. In this context national actions as well as regional actions are needed. In this process the local and regional energy agency play an important role as a driving force.
• Driving forces are mainly based on the financial side, but in addition information and education is still important. The important of business development should not be underestimated.
• Countries with a small internal use of biomass could find export opportunities as a driving force. This is true especially for e.g. wood pellets. Subsidies are important but only in the short term in order to have financial sustainability.
• Harmonisation (taxes etc) in relation to Candidate countries' inclusion in the union is a key word.
• Combined business and study tours could be a possible action in the right direction.
• Internalisation of external costs is extremely important to succeed with reducing carbon dioxide.

Lessons learned:

• The project shows a new possibility, or business idea, for farmers co-ordinating themselves around a renewable energy project. The concept also includes a social dimension for the farmers.
• It is important, in order to succeed, to have well trained and well motivated personal, as well as good follow-up on economical and technical results.

Lessons learned:

• The existing boiler must be suitable for installation pellet burner.
• The quality of wood pellets is an important factor for good operation of pellets burning equipment and therefore European standards are of big value.
• The basics for getting good results in operation of new equipment like pellet burner is to train the boiler house personnel during the project implementation.
• The good example: The satisfaction of boiler house owners has created interest among another boiler house owners to install their own pellet burning equipment.
• Although pellets are more expensive than wood chips, it is more suitable in small plants used in municipal buildings. It is also more convenient from a maintenance point of view.

Lessons learned:

• An energy "vision" or energy strategy with clear goals could be easier to implement as it more practical and flexible than a detailed energy plan
  
• Successful implementation of a municipal energy strategy requires long time, long-term political support, and foresighted and motivated officials.
  
• Economic aspects, local employment and environmental impact are important aspects when deciding on heating systems at local level. Energy agencies and wood energy projects have an important role to play by making pre-feasibility studies and comparative impact assessments of conversion to biomass heating
  
• Good examples in the neighbourhood is the most efficient way to get motivation locally for further investment interest
  
• After joining the European Union, the number of funds has increased. This has forced the establishment of regional development programmes including biomass. This makes a good opportunity for Candidate countries.

Starting from a low base, Ireland has seen considerable advances in Biomass in recent times, so much so that it is foreseen that some three 50 000 tonne wood fuel production facilities will proceed within the Irish mechanical forest industry and agricultural sector in 2003. This is the result of an integrated action plan comprising market research, information dissemination, organised events, national targets and a funding programme.

Wood energy within the mechanical forestry industry was identified as a sector with considerable potential for biomass implementation in Ireland. Subsequently, information and details of wood energy events were targeted at relevant organisations i.e., panel boardmills, sawmills, existing fuel suppliers, main forestry companies, high-energy users etc. As a result of a national Wood Energy Conference, as well as a successful annual wood energy study tour which took place in Sweden in 2002 (where delegates participated in the World's First International Wood Pellets Conference, the EU Managenergy Workshop on small-scale biomass utilisation and visited pellet production facilities), three potential wood pellet production projects have now emerged in Ireland. All three have applied for feasibility and demonstration support under Sustainable Energy Ireland's Renewable Energy Research, Development & Demonstration programme. Establishment of wood pellet production units, and hence a reliable wood fuel supply chain in Ireland, will significantly advance the development of wood energy in large buildings with associated reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, in line with EU and national targets.

The pellet production plants will result in:

Lessons learned:

• Key steps for the fast and successful implementation activities are networking and the possibility for people to meet and talk, as well as making people make see for themselves (good examples seen at site).
  
• In addition, the funding programme has been a driving force.
  
• It is important to learn from other EU countries, but even more important is making the experiences relevant and focused on the Irish conditions

Total investment costs 3.3 million Euro, 70% subsidy from PHARE CBC Programme. The emissions of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and fly ash will decrease by as much as ca 86%, and carbon dioxide emissions will decrease by more than 20%. The 70% investment subsidy will allow a decrease the current level of heat price from €13/GJ to €11.6/GJ, the internal rate of return of the remaining 30% investment is 12%.

Lesson learned:

• The potential for biomass at a reasonable price is limited.
  
• Big opportunities for smaller biomass projects, but funds need to be available at the present energy price situation.
  
• Project examples available show very site specific performances.
  
• Few examples available in Czech Republic.
  

Lessons learned:

• Increased prices on natural gas is expected to increase which gives biomass better possibilities
  
• The larger plants to be developed will most probably use wood chips, while smaller plants could be of interest using pellets.
  
• Most of the pellets production (90%) today is exported, and export is also in the future considered a great option, even though national utilisation will increase
  
• What is needed to utilise the potential is information campaigns, training of installers, capacity building through networks, as well as good examples. Other examples are VAT reduction on RES technologies, taxes promoting RES and other regulatory instruments.

A detailed description of the study tour is given below. Three sites were visited:

1. The University Forest Enterprise of the Technical University in Zvolen and the Demonstration Project of Bio-energy System in Zvolen. The boiler has a capacity of 605 kWth and is fired by clean wood residues from sawmills owned by the UFE. The bio-energy system has consumption of 300-400 tonnes/yr of wood chips and saw dust. The plant was put up and finanised by Holland and the institute in charge was BTG. The brand of the plant was KARA.
   
   The tour participants received a warm welcome to the site and the head of forestry showed great interest in expressing their experiences with the plant and its benefits for the university. From the experiences in Austria, Sweden and Finland, having more biomass installation and many years of experience, the plant was rather inefficiently used, with possibilities for improvments large. However, the plant was very important for the university in educating students and future engineers in biomass. Several participants showed interest in future collaboration with the university of Zvolen, and new projects for further implementation of biomass in Slovakia was seen.
   
   
2. The Tlmace Power Plant fired by wood chips represents an industrial bio-energy system with capacity of the 15 MWth.
   
   The plant at Tlmace was a commercial plant used to supply the industrial area in which is was situated with heat and electricity. The industrial area and the plant was owned by Slovenské Energetické Strojárne a.s. being a large supplier of combustion equipment and other equipment needed for large scale biomass plants. Several plants have been delivered outside Slovakia. The plant was professionally operated and a nice object for further visits for decision makers within the industrial sector. The implementation of systems, like this one maybe of less importance to local and regional energy agencies, even though industrial areas and information to industrial leaders is an important part of their work.
   
   
3. Municipality Wolfstahl in Lower with a Straw Biomass district heating system with installed capacity 2,5 MWth and distribution length 17 km.
   
   The Wolfstahl plant was based on straw and a sophisticated local collaboration between the village inhabitants and the local farmers. The plant was run by the collective of inhabitants and supplying heat to more than 5000 people. The process from which the plant was originally realised is interesting and could serve as a good example for other local or regional initiatives. As the plant supported the whole hot water system for both heating and household, it was problems during summer as it the efficiency of the plant to produce hot water was very low and therefore very expensive to run.

The ManagEnergy initiative is for local and regional energy agencies and promotes the possibilities for them to make use of good examples and the ManagEnergy networks. Making local initiatives together with and in collaboration with a local/regional energy agency is an important way of networking, introducing possibilities for clustering around new ideas and initiatives. The local events constitute an important tool for bringing the experiences from the present Member States to the Candidate countries and visa versa. We should keep in mind that the attraction and interest in participating in local events from participants from Candidate countries are large due to the possibilities in keeping the travel budget small.

Zvolen is a town of approx. 50.000 inhabitants, located in the well-afforested area of Pohronie - beautiful valley of river Hron in the Central Slovakia.

The goal of is to see the bio-energy system - demonstration project of wood chips fired heating plant at the University Forest Enterprise (UFE) in Zvolen.

The main purpose of the UFE is to create conditions for practical education of students and to attest outcomes of scientific and research work of teachers and researchers and research workers of the University. Besides this, it operates various demonstration facilities. Its original area was 5,375 ha and it consisted of forests of various origin including forests Land of and Duty Register, private, clerical, and forests owned by town. At present, the UFE manages forests with a total area of 10, 776 ha

The University Forest Enterprise, part of the Technical University in Zvolen, consists of a number of buildings, offices and workshops. The heat demand was covered by 3 brown coal fired hot water boilers, each with a capacity of 250 kWth.

Main drawbacks of the past situation were:

• combustion of brown coal, being a fossil fuel, significantly contributes to the green-house effect;
• the thermal efficiency of the brown coal boilers is very poor (about 50%);
• brown coal is expensive; the local price amounts to 42 EUR/tonne;
• combustion of brown coal leads to strong environmental pollution in the form of dust, CO and SOx.
  

The Technical University in Zvolen and BTG Biomass Technology Group, The Netherlands have identified the University Forest Enterprise as a promising site for the demonstration of an alternative energy supply system: a biomass based heating plant.

The project "Replacement of brown coal fired boilers by a biomass fired boiler at the University Forest Enterprise of the Technical University in Zvolen", ref. No. PSO 98/SK/2/16 was materialised under the framework of the Dutch Program for Co-operation in Central and Eastern Europe (PSO-programme). The total investment costs come to about EUR 450,000.

The boiler has a capacity of 605 kWth and is fired by clean wood residues from sawmills owned by the UFE. The bio-energy system has consumption of 300-400 tonnes/yr of wood chips and saw dust.

The boiler was connected to the existing hot water pipeline network. Manufacturer of the combustion plant is KARA Energy Systems, The Netherlands. Local engineering was carried out by the Slovak company ENAS.

The special furnace design ensures that woody biofuel burns in an environmentally sound way. Emissions of dust and CO are extremely low and meet the Slovak standards and European norms. The fire heats water up to a temperature of approximately 95 °C. The buildings and workshops of the UFE are supplied with hot water for heating purposes.
The biofuel-fired boiler replaced three old brown-coal fired boilers with low efficiency. It is estimated that the combustion efficiency is increased by more than 50 % also emissions of ash, dust and CO are significantly reduced.

It is envisaged that the demonstration project in Zvolen will initiate similar projects in Slovakia. Especially in the wood processing industry, having a considerable heat demand and high availability of low cost wood residues, there is a large potential for biomass-based projects.

In the Zvolen region, 55 private wood companies are listed, in the rest of Slovakia about 1000. It is expected that the Zvolen project will contribute to the further development of the biomass market in the region and Slovakia as a whole.

The Tlmace Power Plant fired by wood chips represents an industrial bio-energy system with capacity of the 15 MWth.

The project of wood-chips combustion represents activity of the company "Slovenske energeticke strojarne - SES, a.s. Tlmace" focused on development of biofuels fired heating plant with higher output capacity.

Continual price increase of fossil fuels and accentuated environmentally acceptable heat production urges heating companies to reassess the structure of their heat producing sources and to use environmentally more acceptable fuels or look for alternative fuels.
The company SES a.s. prepared a feasibility study focussed on evaluation of heat production in heating plant and electricity consumption on their premises in 2000. This study results in an idea to restructure the heat sources and to the fuel change aiming at more efficient heat production. The fuel change consisted in the switchover from brown coal to wood chips.

New alternative of heat production in SES a.s. considered heat deliveries in the following structure:

• 111 578 GJ p.a. - heat for space heating provided by combustion of wood chips and natural gas,
  
• 28 192 GJ p.a. - space heating by natural gas infra-red heaters,
  
• 10 717 GJ p.a. - domestic hot water prepared by natural gas combustion.
  

Based on this suggestion as well as on the results of combustion tests carried out by use wood-chips in the working grate-boiler K5 designed originally for brown coal combustion; SES management decided to adjust the boiler K5 for wood-chips combustion and to install CHP unit for hot water delivery.

The boiler reconstruction was implemented outside the heat delivery season - from April to September 2001. After the successful adaptation the boiler K5 has been operating on base of wood-chips during the heating season 2001-2002. This highly influenced the economy of heat production.

Environmental aspects of reconstruction: Emissions SO₂ and NO_x are markedly under emission limit, which is achieved thanks to the fuel and to the combustion technology. CO emissions are also under the defined limit and are significantly influenced by the observation of the correct regime of the boiler by operators. One did not measure emissions of solid particles. The asset at CO₂, emissions are remarkable, as CO₂ emissions produced by biomass combustion are not taken into account in the overall greenhouse gas emissions.

Within the framework of the project of increased efficiency in heat production one installed CHP unit of thermal output 0.509 MW and electrical output 0.404 MW in April 2002. At present this unit provides for the heat deliveries in hot water for all plants on the SES premises. As a peaking source for space heating one has an 8 MW hot water boiler installed in Autumn 2000.

Payback of this project at energy prices in 2001 was stated on period of 3.9 years.

The third excursion will lead us to municipality Wolfstahl in Lower Austria to visit municipal Straw Biomass district heating system with installed capacity 2.5 MWth and distribution length 17 km. The project holder and operator is company FWG Wolfsthal reg. Gen. m. b. H. and the project is running from 1992. At the moment there is 309 users connected to the heating system.

Energy is central to modern societies. It plays a key part in people's everyday lives and is a major factor in economic competitiveness and employment. Sustainable development is a central theme of the energy policy, considering that 94% of man-made emissions are attributed to the energy sector where the European Union has to take action to implement the Kyoto Protocol.

Renewable energy plays an important role in the transition to sustainable energy production. Biomass is and will be a local/regional resource, and as such makes it possible to create local/regional employment effects as well as creating environmental benefits. In addition, the actions taken on local and regional level are becoming increasingly important. In order to increase the communication and networking among local and regional energy agencies, we would like to welcome you to Bratislava, Slovakia 4-5 February 2003.

This ManagEnergy workshop presenting the area biomass utilisation is organised in conjunction with the III International Slovak Biomass Forum (ISBF) 2003. The ManagEnergy section of the conference is oriented towards local and regional energy agencies and is another building block to facilitate global thinking on a strategic and local level. The aim of this workshop is to present good examples carried out at local and regional level by energy management agencies, and through discussions find new ways of reaching the common objective of increase in renewable energy. In addition, we would like to take you on a study tour to show good examples from the Slovakian market.