Farmers need support to start growing crops such as willow and miscanthus to meet the demand expected from the acceleration of energy generation from biomass, participants in a meeting organised by the Irish Bioenergy Association (IrBEA) said this Friday.

The workshop brought together industry and State agencies involved in the Support Scheme for Renewable Heat (SSRH), which opened earlier this month to pay incentives to users of biomass or biogas heating for the next 15 years.

Supply will be an issue

Although participants highlighted the expected doubling of wood fuel production from maturing forests, "supply will be an issue," said Teagasc energy specialist Barry Caslin.

He showed calculations indicating that willow and miscanthus could be sold to boiler users for less than half the current price of oil per kWh of heat generated – but these were based on the restoration of 40% establishment grants that existed a decade ago.

The Government stopped them after the market collapsed for want of buyers at the time.

IrBEA chief executive Sean Finan said the association's members were currently preparing numbers to include a request for this type of scheme in its pre-budget submission.

"We are calling on Minister Creed to look at re-establishing this grant," he told the Irish Farmers Journal.

Imports

Aside from heat users now supported by the SSRH, electricity generators are also planning to convert their peat and coal stations to biomass in the coming years.

A representative for the ESB said the State-owned company would probably have to import supplies initially to be able to source the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of material it will need.

Caslin said: "It can be imported, but we should be insulating ourselves against that and look at it from a rural development perspective and saying 'what can we do to create more jobs in rural areas'."

Read more in next week's Irish Farmers Journal.

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