Teagasc’s recent bioenergy conference was brought forward from a spring date to November to coincide with what should have been a discussion on the ‘National bioenergy strategy’. But, alas, it is not yet completed. This represents the ongoing story of bioenergy which, at official level at least, has been talk with little direction for action.
In his opening remarks Teagasc’s director, Prof Gerry Boyle, said “There have been many brave and pioneering investors over the past decade and more, but the sector remains very confused. We lack the political direction to increase usage significantly.”
Many farmers know this to their cost. Grants helped to spark miscanthus planting but up to recently there has been no credible market – credible that is in terms of profitability for growers.
We have seen reasonable progress with other forms of biomass usage, with big projects put in place using woodchip to produce heat.
The nation needs to produce 16% of its total energy from renewable sources by 2020. Wind has been the major focus to date but most believe that half of the 16% target will have to come from crops. About 3,000ha of biomass crops were established under the planting scheme but some of these have already been ploughed up.
The biomass sector is struggling, Prof Boyle stated. Farmers expect markets for the crops they are encouraged to produce, and a reasonable price. “Sometimes markets must be created,” Prof Boyle said. “Look at what other countries have done and see how Northern Ireland’s policies have delivered. We are now exporting feedstock to NI plants. Even things like the use of sludge on biomass crops is more difficult than on food crops.”
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The lack of national direction for the biomass sector has forced Teagasc to cut back on research in this area.
Many speakers stated that government should set the example by encouraging its own departments and other semi-State facilities like hospitals, libraries, prisons, etc, to change to biomass heating. At current oil prices it provides a relatively quick payback, as long at the projects are big enough.
Prof Boyle stated that Teagasc have embraced the technology to lead by example. Biomass is used to provide heat for Oak Park; Johnstown Castle has recently installed a miscanthus burner as a small district heating system and the organisation is to spend €1.7 million on a small research and demonstration anaerobic digestion facility at Grange. These types of projects are essential to lead the way and to help instil confidence.
||PIC3||
Why the targets?
The targets to produce and consume renewable energies are driven by the EU’s 2020 strategy. Mairead McGuinness MEP said that the challenge is to get a sensible balance between all the different requirements of policy which aim to:
Use less fossil fuelIncrease renewable energy use to 20%Decrease greenhouse gas emissions by 20%Improve energy efficiency by 20%Achieve a 20% reduction in the use of carbon resources.But the food versus fuel debate is very live within Europe and policy will reflect this. The EU needs to better understand how best to use land resources to deliver food, fuel, fibre and so-called ‘ecosystem services’.
That said, ‘a lot of paper has now been produced on this whole area and it is time to act’, Mairead stated. “We have been talking about renewable energy and anaerobic digestion since we watched black and white TV.”
Our National Renewable Energy Action Plan indicates that our 16% target will be delivered as 10% in transport fuels, 12% in the heat sector and around 40% as electricity. And it is expected that bioenergy will account for approximately half of this.
Must avoid penalties
It is essential that Ireland achieves its renewable energy targets according to Senator John Whelan, who is the Labour Party’s Seanad spokesperson on energy and natural resources. Bioenergy needs a carrot and stick approach. John believes that there has been too much emphasis on wind to date at the expense of other forms of renewable energy. There are more than 10 different technologies that can contribute to achieving our targets and they can all be part of the solution. “We are only weeks away from the publication of the ‘National Bioenergy Strategy’. This will to deliver a path to help achieve our targets but we need sustainability and not excess regulation,” the Senator stated.
“We must achieve these targets – the cost of failure is big penalties. These amount to roughly €150 million for every 1% which we are below our 16% national target. If we fail by 3% this will mean a fine of €450 million, or almost half a billion euro, to come from the Exchequer.”
Even with the new National Bioenergy Strategy in place, there are no guarantees that supply will meet the requirements of the sector. Matthew Clancy from the Sustainable Energy Association of Ireland (SEAI) showed the availability levels of a whole range of renewable resources. However, on the biomass side, he acknowledged that production and supply are price limiting and so they need drivers to encourage production.
He indicated that biomass crops, like miscanthus, would require a doubling or trebling of current price levels to encourage adequate production. Too often the producer is forgotten in these equations. Farmers are the people who decide how best to use their land for themselves and their families and this is driven by profit potential over time. The general unwillingness to embrace the planting incentives offered by some end users comes back to profitability and perceived security.
Farmers have a distrust of policy, based heavily on the ‘potential promise’ suggested for bioenergy more than a decade ago.
It will take almost 70,000ha of land to produce the necessary biomass to meet the stated national requirements. This figure was identified in the Tillage Sector Development Plan (TSDP). Speaking on the ability to supply this volume of product, Tom Bruton of BioXL said that a recent committee set up under the TSDP identified the need to protect the existing investment by growers as a primary objective.
Biomass must be targeted at local heat markets and the grant scheme for establishment should be extended to equipment for drying and storage, etc.
With regards to planting, the group is asking for the removal of the 30ha limit for planting grant aid and a standardisation of grant payment. Finally, they indicate that a cashflow bridge is required for up to four years for growers post planting but this should be designed to suit farmers rather than businesses.
Can biomass crops benefit from the additions of organic manures such as effluent or sludge? And would these impact in terms of increased emissions during burning?
These questions were examined in some recent Teagasc work on willow. The results showed no downside issues but yield was boosted by the use of additional nutrients. The research, reported by John Finnan, showed that the crops benefited from the application of sewage sludge and distillery effluent. The results found increased uptake of the more available nutrients and a yield response to additional nutrient, up to 80kgN/ha. There were no environmental issues identified by the study, nor was there any evidence of higher emissions.
Biogas & biomethane
The process of anaerobic digestion is normally referred to in the context of combined heat and power (CHP) arising from a range of feedstock materials like slurry, manure, maize, fodder beet, etc. The controlled digestion process is used to release and capture methane or biogas and that is then normally used on site to power an engine to produce electricity, with heat as a byproduct. The challenge in this system is to use the heat energy efficiently.
Prof Jerry Murphy from UCC argues that this biogas can be more efficiently used in pursuit of national targets by keeping it as a gas and using it as either a transport fuel or as a fuel for heating, cooking, etc. This gas can be tapped into the grid system without need for additional infrastructure. Gas is already used as a vehicle fuel in many parts of the world.
The raw materials source for this biogas can be grass, from grassland that is currently underutilised. And it can be supplemented with a range of other materials such as slurry, food waste, etc, to give a very efficient process with up to 90% of the potential gas yield captured.
Ian Kilgallon of Bord Gáis supported this idea, stating that the biogas produced can easily be cleaned and filtered to produce biomethane to go into the grid. This can be organised in many different ways but will generally involve a cluster of AD plants pumping biogas to a central cleaning unit from which it is injected into the grid. Once in the grid it can be distributed directly to homes via the urban grid, like water or electricity, or carried to homes with storage tanks using tankers, just like oil is today.
The vast majority of private forests will only come on stream for the first time in the coming decade. Doing this effectively will be a challenge. “We can learn from what generations have been doing in other countries,” said Noel Gavigan of the Irish BioEnergy Association.
Noel suggested that biomass depot/trade centres should be established here. They can be used to supply the needs of both producers and consumers of wood and wood products. They should have the ability to process wood into whatever form local consumers require.
Teagasc’s recent bioenergy conference was brought forward from a spring date to November to coincide with what should have been a discussion on the ‘National bioenergy strategy’. But, alas, it is not yet completed. This represents the ongoing story of bioenergy which, at official level at least, has been talk with little direction for action.
In his opening remarks Teagasc’s director, Prof Gerry Boyle, said “There have been many brave and pioneering investors over the past decade and more, but the sector remains very confused. We lack the political direction to increase usage significantly.”
Many farmers know this to their cost. Grants helped to spark miscanthus planting but up to recently there has been no credible market – credible that is in terms of profitability for growers.
We have seen reasonable progress with other forms of biomass usage, with big projects put in place using woodchip to produce heat.
The nation needs to produce 16% of its total energy from renewable sources by 2020. Wind has been the major focus to date but most believe that half of the 16% target will have to come from crops. About 3,000ha of biomass crops were established under the planting scheme but some of these have already been ploughed up.
The biomass sector is struggling, Prof Boyle stated. Farmers expect markets for the crops they are encouraged to produce, and a reasonable price. “Sometimes markets must be created,” Prof Boyle said. “Look at what other countries have done and see how Northern Ireland’s policies have delivered. We are now exporting feedstock to NI plants. Even things like the use of sludge on biomass crops is more difficult than on food crops.”
||PIC2||
The lack of national direction for the biomass sector has forced Teagasc to cut back on research in this area.
Many speakers stated that government should set the example by encouraging its own departments and other semi-State facilities like hospitals, libraries, prisons, etc, to change to biomass heating. At current oil prices it provides a relatively quick payback, as long at the projects are big enough.
Prof Boyle stated that Teagasc have embraced the technology to lead by example. Biomass is used to provide heat for Oak Park; Johnstown Castle has recently installed a miscanthus burner as a small district heating system and the organisation is to spend €1.7 million on a small research and demonstration anaerobic digestion facility at Grange. These types of projects are essential to lead the way and to help instil confidence.
||PIC3||
Why the targets?
The targets to produce and consume renewable energies are driven by the EU’s 2020 strategy. Mairead McGuinness MEP said that the challenge is to get a sensible balance between all the different requirements of policy which aim to:
Use less fossil fuelIncrease renewable energy use to 20%Decrease greenhouse gas emissions by 20%Improve energy efficiency by 20%Achieve a 20% reduction in the use of carbon resources.But the food versus fuel debate is very live within Europe and policy will reflect this. The EU needs to better understand how best to use land resources to deliver food, fuel, fibre and so-called ‘ecosystem services’.
That said, ‘a lot of paper has now been produced on this whole area and it is time to act’, Mairead stated. “We have been talking about renewable energy and anaerobic digestion since we watched black and white TV.”
Our National Renewable Energy Action Plan indicates that our 16% target will be delivered as 10% in transport fuels, 12% in the heat sector and around 40% as electricity. And it is expected that bioenergy will account for approximately half of this.
Must avoid penalties
It is essential that Ireland achieves its renewable energy targets according to Senator John Whelan, who is the Labour Party’s Seanad spokesperson on energy and natural resources. Bioenergy needs a carrot and stick approach. John believes that there has been too much emphasis on wind to date at the expense of other forms of renewable energy. There are more than 10 different technologies that can contribute to achieving our targets and they can all be part of the solution. “We are only weeks away from the publication of the ‘National Bioenergy Strategy’. This will to deliver a path to help achieve our targets but we need sustainability and not excess regulation,” the Senator stated.
“We must achieve these targets – the cost of failure is big penalties. These amount to roughly €150 million for every 1% which we are below our 16% national target. If we fail by 3% this will mean a fine of €450 million, or almost half a billion euro, to come from the Exchequer.”
Even with the new National Bioenergy Strategy in place, there are no guarantees that supply will meet the requirements of the sector. Matthew Clancy from the Sustainable Energy Association of Ireland (SEAI) showed the availability levels of a whole range of renewable resources. However, on the biomass side, he acknowledged that production and supply are price limiting and so they need drivers to encourage production.
He indicated that biomass crops, like miscanthus, would require a doubling or trebling of current price levels to encourage adequate production. Too often the producer is forgotten in these equations. Farmers are the people who decide how best to use their land for themselves and their families and this is driven by profit potential over time. The general unwillingness to embrace the planting incentives offered by some end users comes back to profitability and perceived security.
Farmers have a distrust of policy, based heavily on the ‘potential promise’ suggested for bioenergy more than a decade ago.
It will take almost 70,000ha of land to produce the necessary biomass to meet the stated national requirements. This figure was identified in the Tillage Sector Development Plan (TSDP). Speaking on the ability to supply this volume of product, Tom Bruton of BioXL said that a recent committee set up under the TSDP identified the need to protect the existing investment by growers as a primary objective.
Biomass must be targeted at local heat markets and the grant scheme for establishment should be extended to equipment for drying and storage, etc.
With regards to planting, the group is asking for the removal of the 30ha limit for planting grant aid and a standardisation of grant payment. Finally, they indicate that a cashflow bridge is required for up to four years for growers post planting but this should be designed to suit farmers rather than businesses.
Can biomass crops benefit from the additions of organic manures such as effluent or sludge? And would these impact in terms of increased emissions during burning?
These questions were examined in some recent Teagasc work on willow. The results showed no downside issues but yield was boosted by the use of additional nutrients. The research, reported by John Finnan, showed that the crops benefited from the application of sewage sludge and distillery effluent. The results found increased uptake of the more available nutrients and a yield response to additional nutrient, up to 80kgN/ha. There were no environmental issues identified by the study, nor was there any evidence of higher emissions.
Biogas & biomethane
The process of anaerobic digestion is normally referred to in the context of combined heat and power (CHP) arising from a range of feedstock materials like slurry, manure, maize, fodder beet, etc. The controlled digestion process is used to release and capture methane or biogas and that is then normally used on site to power an engine to produce electricity, with heat as a byproduct. The challenge in this system is to use the heat energy efficiently.
Prof Jerry Murphy from UCC argues that this biogas can be more efficiently used in pursuit of national targets by keeping it as a gas and using it as either a transport fuel or as a fuel for heating, cooking, etc. This gas can be tapped into the grid system without need for additional infrastructure. Gas is already used as a vehicle fuel in many parts of the world.
The raw materials source for this biogas can be grass, from grassland that is currently underutilised. And it can be supplemented with a range of other materials such as slurry, food waste, etc, to give a very efficient process with up to 90% of the potential gas yield captured.
Ian Kilgallon of Bord Gáis supported this idea, stating that the biogas produced can easily be cleaned and filtered to produce biomethane to go into the grid. This can be organised in many different ways but will generally involve a cluster of AD plants pumping biogas to a central cleaning unit from which it is injected into the grid. Once in the grid it can be distributed directly to homes via the urban grid, like water or electricity, or carried to homes with storage tanks using tankers, just like oil is today.
The vast majority of private forests will only come on stream for the first time in the coming decade. Doing this effectively will be a challenge. “We can learn from what generations have been doing in other countries,” said Noel Gavigan of the Irish BioEnergy Association.
Noel suggested that biomass depot/trade centres should be established here. They can be used to supply the needs of both producers and consumers of wood and wood products. They should have the ability to process wood into whatever form local consumers require.
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