Most biomass is used with coal in co-firing, in large-scale, low-efficiency units Shutterstock

Around five percent of the EU’s final energy consumption currently comes from bio-energy, according to the European Commission. Projections suggest this amount could double within a decade, with biomass comprising half of the bloc’s 2020 renewable energy target of 20 percent.

In Poland, together with wind energy, biomass offers the largest potential for renewable energy sources (RES), according to experts. This prominence is due to the relative maturity of biomass technologies and supply sources, as well as lower investment costs than for other maturing renewable energy technologies.

The easy solution …

Although hydropower and wind power currently form the bulk of RES installations in Poland, both renewable electricity and heat are dominated by biomass.

Indeed, one of the reasons behind biomass’ popularity is that coal-based energy producers, which still dominate the Polish energy market, need to make very few investments to use biomass in co-firing.

With co-firing, existing coal units can use up to 10 percent of biomass in coal boilers without making significant changes to existing equipment or securing new connections to the electrical grid (one of the main barriers to RES development in Poland).

According to Poland’s Energy Market Agency (ARE), of the 8.6 TWh of renewable electricity produced in 2009, 4.2 TWh (almost 50 percent) came from co-firing of biomass with coal, with biomass and biogas combustion in small units and industrial cogeneration plants accounting for a further 1 TWh. Hydropower plants produced 2.4 TWh, while wind power amounted to just 1 TWh.

“Co-firing provides energy producers with additional revenues from green certificates without making significant investments,” explained Marek Hryniewicz of the Polish Biomass Association (POLBIOM) and the Institute of Technology and Life Sciences in Warsaw.

… but not the best one

However, co-firing ranks low among environmentally friendly technologies. As it is mainly used by large-scale coal producers, vast amounts of biomass are processed and the huge scale of transport involved produces additional CO2. In addition, these plants are generally not highly energy efficient.

“Co-firing amounted to three percent of the total energy produced in Poland in 2009,” said Robert Zajdler, an energy expert at the Sobieski Institute. “That’s a huge amount, but it is due to a flaw in the system,” he said.

Currently, certificates are the main incentive for producing renewable energy in Poland, and they are most profitable for big energy producers using co-firing.

“If the system of state aid is regulated in a different way so as to encourage more environmentally friendly technologies, things will change,” Mr Zajdler elaborated.

Also, because biomass and coal possess very different properties, complications arise with co-firing which do not exist in systems designed exclusively for biomass.

“The co-firing process considerably reduces the reliability of operation and causes damages, especially in large scale-units,” stated Michał Ćwil, an expert on the RES market at the Polish Economic Chamber of Renewable Energy (PIGEO).

Grzegorz Górski, CEO of energy producer GDF Suez Polska, which runs several co-firing plants, agreed that biomass is risky.

“Biomass is prone to explosion and undergoes biological processes like fermentation, increased temperature, self-ignition and fire,” he said. Mr Górski stated that almost half of the value of his firm’s investment in biomass was devoted to security, a proportion unseen with coal.

This, argues Mr Hryniewicz, is typical of persistent attitudes towards biomass. “Laws and regulations have made it so that biomass is profitable for energy producers, but they are still coal-minded,” he said. “There are problems not necessarily with the technology, but with the mentalities,” he added.

Small and local

Both the government and independent experts agree that the most efficient way to use biomass is in small, local plants. However, with just 1 TWh (of the total 8.6 TWh) of renewable electricity production coming from cogeneration and small biomass and biogas units, co-firing clearly dominates the industry.

In separate reports on renewable energy, a group of local government representatives and PIGEO propose simplified procedures to facilitate the development of small RES installations and the diversification of energy sources.

Complicated environmental impact assessments could be simplified and subsidies made more accessible for small-scale projects. The simplification and consolidation of current legislation and procedures, as well as a transfer of competencies to the regional or local level, are also advocated.

“Currently it is easier for bigger energy producers to get funding [for renewable energy projects] than for smaller ones,” admitted the Sobieski Institute’s Zajdler. “Until now investments have been made mainly for big producers, but it is about to change,” he added.

Transport is key

Pascal Bonne, CEO of Dalkia Polska, Poland’s largest private operator of heating networks, says that the real challenge for biomass projects is logistical. The firm recently launched a €70 million investment for two boilers entirely dedicated to burning biomass, which should process some 600,000 metric tons of biomass per year.

Source: Institute for Renewable Energy

POLBIOM’s Hryniewicz argued that, above all, there is a need for small and widely distributed installations.

Indeed, more biomass than coal is required to produce the same amount of energy, which increases transport costs.

“The limit of the area from which you can transport straw economically is 60-100 km from the boiler. This is the limit of this business,” said Mr Hryniewicz.

A rough calculation of the yearly consumption of Poland’s biggest biomass project to date puts that challenge into perspective. GDF Suez Energia Polska recently announced the construction of a 190 MW power station fueled exclusively by biomass. The unit will require more than one million metric tons of biomass a year.

Green heat uncool?

The main share in green energy demand still belongs to heat, followed by electricity and biofuels. According to PIGEO, biomass accounts for a little less than half of green electricity generation, but comprises as much as 98 percent of renewable heat production.

However, renewable energy regulations are directed mainly at the green electricity sector and there is no targeted support for RES heat in Poland.

Mr Bonne criticized the fact that heat tends to be overlooked in favor of electricity by European policymakers. And this, despite the fact that Poland possesses many large-scale municipal heating networks that would make it possible to use biomass to generate heat on a large scale.

“France, for example, possesses few and very small heating networks,” commented Mr Bonne. “In Central and Eastern European countries, there is infrastructure for common heating, which has always been well tended to and now represents an important opportunity for these countries,” he said.

High hopes for cogeneration

As opposed to electricity, there is no guaranteed price for heat and heat does not qualify for green certificates. However, there are specific incentives for producing heat and electricity in high-efficiency cogeneration units.

According to Mr Ćwil, cogeneration is among the most important technologies to fulfill both the Polish biomass potential and its RES and CO2 reduction targets.

Cogeneration greatly improves energy efficiency (up to 30 percent over regular plants), and Polish energy policy envisions that by 2020, production of electricity from high-efficiency cogeneration will be double its 2006 level.

Mr Ćwil was highly skeptical. “How can they reach their objective without any support mechanisms?” he asked.

The current support mechanism for electricity produced from high-efficiency cogeneration is set to end by 2012 for red certificates (for biomass units bigger than 1 MW) and yellow ones (for agricultural biogas-based plants or biomass units of capacity up to 1 MW) and by 2018 for violet certificates (for all biogas based plants).

What now?

The Economy Ministry presented a draft of Poland’s National Renewable Energy Action Plan at the end of May. The document, a road map to achieving the country’s 2020 renewable energy target – 15 percent of electricity from renewables – was heavily criticized by energy organizations, especially regarding biomass (see article this page).

Although energy from biomass is set to increase every year and become Poland’s main renewable energy source by 2020, the current state of affairs makes some experts pessimistic about the future of biomass.

“This is not the way to achieve the 2020 target. There needs to be efforts made not only in the amount of renewable energy produced from biomass, but also in CO2 emission reduction, energy efficiency and energy savings,” Michał Ćwil of PIGEO said.

“Special care should be devoted to using biomass in high efficiency projects,” he added.
Unless some major changes are implemented in the near future, the existing regulations and the lack of support mechanisms for small cogeneration units will continue to favor biomass use for co-firing in big and low-efficiency units.

More of the same, in other words, and bearing little resemblance to the “innovative solutions” that the country’s leaders so often call for.