Altener

Context

Renewable energies will be more and more important in the future. As an example, one can mention the objectives of the Walloon Plan for sustainable management of energy or the Green Paper (European Commission) which encourages European countries to have a secure, affordable and ecological energy supply. The use of renewable energy will also lead to a mitigation of the atmospheric pollution.

Objectives

The Biomass logistics project (Establishment of a logistic chain to improve and promote the energetic use of solid biomass in two model regions), with two partners from Belgium and Germany, aims at the development of strategies to overcome the logistic barriers for biomass. In two model regions with high biomass potential, but with low practical application so far, all partners in the supply and demand chain will be brought together : farmers and foresters as biomass producers and potential users, fuel traders, heating engineers and chimney sweeps, private house owners and municipality officials. They will create a virtual biomass network to overcome the problems which are typical for an emerging market. At the end of the project, biomass based energy systems will be much more applied than before. This will reduce environmental pollution and create new economic opportunities in regions with a typically weak economic structure. Results of the project will be transferable to many other European regions with similar natural and structural conditions.

Description of tasks

Phase 1 – Determination of target regions.
The target region in Wallonia is divided into two parts : one part for the centre and the other one for the peripheral area. The first one consists in the Tenneville city, the second one in the towns located around Tenneville.According to the last survey of INS (2001), 14 % of private houses of Tenneville use wood as main fuel.Furthermore, the chosen area has a high potential in wood-energy. There is also a project to install a little district heating system in Tenneville. It is performed in the frame of the Wood-Energy and Rural Development Plan for Wallonia.
Phase 2 – Initial talks with government, agriculture and forestry as well as related associations.
Main contacts are orientated to the Forest Servives (Division de la Nature et des Forêts, Ministère de la Région wallonne), the private forest owners association (Société Royale Forestière de Belgique), the farmers, the professional associations active in the field of wood (forest harvesters, sawyers, …).
Phase 3 – Incorporation of farmers, foresters and fuel merchants.
Contacts are also taken with fuel merchants. It will be possible for them to become wood-fuel merchants in a near future.General interest in the production and energetic application of solid biomass should be determined as well as possible problems and reasons for hesitation.This phase plays an important part to solve some logistic problems. The incorporation of farmers, foresters and fuel merchants is useful to establish a virtual biomass supply network.
Phase 4 – Incorporation of potential customers.
A survey form was distributed to the inhabitants of Tenneville. Furthermore, an information meeting was organized in Tenneville. These actions, combined with other initiatives, lead to a better knowledge of the interest of the population for wood-fuel in Tenneville. It comes out that the interest for wood heating seems important. On the other hand, a lack of knowledge of modern techniques and still high prices prevent the sector from developing.
Phase 5 – Organisational assistance.
All future consumers of bioenergy need to be provided with information about supply sources, costs and technical standards of biomass boilers. In order to avoid disagreements between consumers and producers of biomass, the type of the most useful biomass fuel should be clarified. This agreement is important for future consumers to know what kind of biomass boiler to purchase.
Phase 6 – Promotion campaign.
Results of the project have widely been disseminated through technical magazines or newspapers.Most of Walloon rural areas have quite similar characteristics : high wood potential and interest for wood fuel. We can therefore think that, with more favourable conditions, new wood heating technologies will appear in Walloon houses.

Results obtained

The inhabitants of Tenneville were advised of the project and an information meeting was organised on the subject. A document of about 15 pages entitled “the individual wood heating” was carried out and spread among the local authorities (some copies were given to the inhabitants who whished to receive it).
When carrying out the project, there was almost no financial support to promote the development of “modern” systems of wood heating. This explains the lack of interest of people for this type of technology (wood automatic furnace). The situation is different at present, since there are subsidies coming from the Walloon Region (automatic furnace and massive fireplaces) and possibilities of tax reduction at federal level. On the other hand, the project of wood heating network for the rural district of Tenneville also develops. Once operational, this project will open new prospects for particulars who would whish to connect to the network.

Contribution

None

Partners

FNR (D)

CRAW off coordinator

Ir. Nuse LACKF
achagentur Nachwachsende Rohstoffe e. V. (FNR)
Hofplatz, 1
D-18276 Gülzow (Germany)
Tél. : +49 38 43 69 30 136
Fax : +49 38 43 69 30 102
Email : n.lack@fnr.de