Heating and cooling with biomass – Summary report - EUBionet

51 Pages·2011·1.18 MB·English

Solutions for biomass fuel market barriers and raw material
availability - IEE/07/777/SI2.499477

Heating and cooling with
biomass – Summary report –
D6.1

Lukas Sulzbacher & Josef Rathbauer

FJ-BLT Wieselburg

Wieselburg, August 2011

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Content

Preface ................................................................................................................. 2
1 Executive summary ......................................................................................... 3
2 Introduction and purpose ................................................................................. 7
2.1 Aim of EUBIONET III WP6 .............................................................................. 7
2.2 Biomass for heating and cooling ..................................................................... 7
2.3 District heating and cooling in Europe ............................................................. 9
2.4 EU renewable energy policy ..........................................................................12
3 Investigation of statistical data Task 6.1 ...........................................................14
3.1 Data availability ..........................................................................................14
3.1.1 Eurostat ............................................................................................14
3.1.2 International Energy Agency ................................................................15
3.2 Initiatives to improve statistical data ..............................................................16
3.2.1 Energy consumptions in households .....................................................17
3.2.2 International activities ........................................................................17
3.2.3 National action on energy consumption in households .............................18
3.3 Conclusion ..................................................................................................20
4 Investigation of technical forms – Task 6.2 .......................................................21
4.1 Aim and methodology ..................................................................................21
4.2 Current state of biomass heating technology ...................................................21
4.2.1 Grate furnace combustion ...................................................................21
4.2.2 Fluidized bed combustion ....................................................................23
4.2.3 Pulverized fuel firing ...........................................................................24
4.2.4 Future developments ..........................................................................25
4.3 Current state of cooling with biomass .............................................................26
4.3.1 The absorption chillers ........................................................................27
4.3.2 Supply concepts for chilled water .........................................................28
4.4 Biomass boiler producer catalogue .................................................................30
4.5 Conclusions.................................................................................................35
5 Investigation of costs – Task 6.3 .....................................................................36
5.1 Aim and Methodology ...................................................................................36
5.2 List of Case studies ......................................................................................37
5.3 Results of the case studies ............................................................................41
6 List of references ...........................................................................................46
7 Appendix 1 – List of Case Studies ....................................................................47
8 Appendix 2 – List of Company fact sheets .........................................................49

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Preface

This publication is part of the EUBIONET III Project (Solutions for biomass fuel market
barriers and raw material availability - IEE/07/777/SI2.499477, www.eubionet.net)
funded by the European Union‟s Intelligent Energy Program. EUBIONET III is coordinated
by VTT. Project partners are Danish Technological Institute, DTI(Denmark), Energy
Centre Bratislava, ECB (Slovakia), Ekodoma (Latvia), Fachagentur Nachwachsende
Rohstoffe e.V., FNR (Germany), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, SLU
(Sweden), Brno University of Technology, UPEI VUT (Czech), Norwegian University of Life
Sciences, UMB (Norway), Centre Wallon de Recherches Agronomiques, CRA-W (Belgium),
FJ-BLT Wieselburg (Austria), European Biomass Association, AEBIOM (Belgium), Centre
for Renewable Energy Sources, CRES (Greece), Utrecht University, UU (Netherlands),
University of Florence, UNIFI (Italy), Lithuanian Energy Institute, LEI (Lithuania),
Imperial College of Science, Imperial (UK), Centro da Biomassa para a Energia, CBE
(Portugal), Energy Restructuring Agency, ApE (Slovenia), Andalusian Energy Agency, AAE
(Spain). The EUBIONET III project runs from 2008 until 2011.
The main objective of the project is to increase the use of biomass based fuels in the EU
by finding ways to overcome the market barriers. The purpose is to promote international
trade of biomass fuels to help that demand and supply meet each other, while at the
same time the availability of industrial raw material is to be secured at reasonable prices.
The EUBIONET III project will in the long run boost sustainable, transparent international
biomass fuel trade, secure the most cost efficient and value-adding use of biomass for
energy and industry, boost the investments on best practice technologies and new
services on biomass heat sector and enhance sustainable and fair international trade of
biomass fuels.
This report is part of Work Package 6: Heating and cooling with biomass of the
EUBIONET III project. It includes a summary of the work of Task 6.1 Investigation of
sources of the fuels and comparison of heating and cooling systems, Task 6.2
Investigations of technical forms and Task 6.3 Investigation of costs. The summary of
the international workshop, which was organized within the frame of the Work Package 6
in Kaunas (Lithuania), could be found in the workshop summary report (D6.2) of WP6.
This summary report was written by Josef Rathbauer and Lukas Sulzbacher from the FJ-
BLT in Wieselburg. The results of Task 6.2 and Task 6.3 are also based on the work of
project partners. We would like to acknowledge the contributions by the WP 6
participating EUBIONET III project partners for their efforts to collect data for the case
studies and conduct interviews.

The sole responsibility for the content of this publication lies with the authors. It does not
necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Communities. The European Commission
is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

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1 Executive summary

Biomass is a very important energy source for heat production, especially for the
residential and service sector. One of the main reasons therefore is that it can easily be
transported, stored, traded and used with several applications at the time and place,
where heat is needed. The use of biomass fuels provides an incentive for the sustainable
management of local woodland, it adds to the local economy and the establishment of a
reliable supply chain.

To point out the role of heating and cooling with biomass in the European Union was a
major aim of EUBIONET III WP6. Therefore analyses of national and European statistical
data and the availability of data are described. To give an overview of the current market
and the technical possibilities, the state of the art of heating and cooling with biomass
was described and a catalogue of selected biomass boiler producers in the participating
countries was carried out.

A very important aim of WP 6 was to compare the costs of different heating systems.
Therefore case studies are provided, to show the costs, when a fossil heating system is
replaced by a biomass heating system. These case studies describe best practice
examples and give an overall picture of the different fossil- and biomass based heating
situations and cost-differences in European countries. The case studies include
calculations and comparisons of emissions in CO equivalents of the fossil and biomass
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based heating system.

Currently approximately half of the final energy demand of EU 27 is used for heating and
in the year 2008 about 11.9 % of this energy demand was covered by renewable energy
sources. First surveys and estimations shows, that the EU 27 consumes about 55.1 Mtoe
of biomass for heating. Major consumers of this energy are the domestic and service
sector.

The actual developments in the biomass energy market are substantially influenced by
European regulations. The Energy and Climate change package and the so called 20-20-
20 targets, as well as the national implementation of the targets have effects on the
biomass heating and cooling sector. To monitor the ongoing developments and to meet
the targets of the EU directive in renewable energies and the National Action Plans,
detailed and reliable energy statistics are necessary.

Statistics on energy have so far been focused on energy supply and on fossil energies.
But in future, more focus is needed on increased knowledge and monitoring of final
energy consumption, renewable energy and nuclear energy.
The households´ energy consumption is a major indicator to monitor developments on
energy efficiency and green house gas emissions in the domestic sector. Investigations in
the line of this work package have shown that there are a few national activities on
biomass consumption of households, but detailed data on energy and biomass
consumption of households are rare. Comprehensive surveys on this topic on Member
States level are very obsolete. The national initiatives to collect data on energy
consumption of households are characterized through different definitions, indicators and
methodologies and make a comparison difficult. Especially the sectors households,
services and transport need improvements on data availability.

The current biomass furnace technology in Europe has already achieved a very high
state-of-the art. The most common biomass fuels for domestic heat production are wood
logs, wood chips and wood pellets. Especially for modern low-energy houses, wood
pellets in combination with grate furnace technology are used. Wood pellets and wood
logs boilers are available with capacities from 10 kW upwards, while wood chips boilers

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are produced with capacities from 30 kW up to some MW. Therefore wood chips boilers
are used for buildings with higher heat demand and for district heating systems.
International political interests to limit emissions from small scale combustion sites are
increasing. Therefore in future further research and development activities to reduce
emissions from biomass boilers are needed. The development of small-scale
commercialized gasification systems is in its early stages, but the technology promises
higher efficiencies than it would have been possible by the direct combustion of the
biomass.

Depending on the political framework requirements of the respective country, there are
differences in technology and quality of the biomass boilers, especially concerning
emissions and safety. The demand for high quality biomass boilers is increasing. The
producers´ survey has shown, that Austrian and German boiler manufacturers are
exporting their products world-wide with a quota of export partly more than 80 %. The
results of the survey are summarized in a producer catalogue. The catalogue includes a
list of 59 selected biomass boiler manufacturers of the participating countries with
information on contact details, form and size of the company, number of employees and
turnover, market share and sold units and a short description of their products.

Cooling with biomass is currently limited to centralized district solutions. The main
market for district cooling is the service sector, followed by the food and mining industry.
The residential sector is characterized by a low demand for biomass and district cooling
at present. Domestic decentralized cooling systems are based on air condition produced
by electrically operated compressor chillers or solar power. The cooling market is
currently dominated by air conditioning systems powered by electricity and the demand
of electricity used for cooling is estimated with more than 260 TWh in Europe.

Cost reduction is still the most relevant factor, by which consumer come to a decision for
a heating system. Based on actual market prices for boilers and fuels a comparison
between the use of fossil and biomass fuels were carried out in form of case studies. The
main focus of the case studies was the cost comparison of fossil and biomass fuels
including investments and fuel costs. In total 32 case studies with 59 different heating
systems were carried out. These heating systems are fired with 18 different fuel types,
10 biomass fuels, 6 different fossil fuels and fuel combinations.

Wood pellet boilers are the most frequent calculated biomass fuel systems in the case
studies. 18 case studies deal with wood pellets. The boiler capacity ranges from 8 kW up
to 1 MW, but mostly used in residential buildings with a capacity from 8 kW to 75 kW.
The second most commonly biomass fuel in the case studies was wood chips with 12
different heating system examples. The capacities of the boiler range from 120 kW up to
3.3 MW and was typically calculated in case studies of large buildings with a high heat
demand. Log wood heating systems were analyzed of 8 case studies. Their capacities
range from 15 kW up to 225 kW.

The investment costs are depending on the used technology and the fuels. The cheapest
systems for heating with biomass are log wood boilers. The lowest investment costs for
fossil fueled heating systems are reported for gas boilers, connected to the gas grid and
electric heaters.

Beside the economical aspects ecological effects of different heating systems have been
analyzed. Therefore the CO equivalent emissions were calculated and the savings were
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pointed out when a fossil fuel based heating system is changed by a biomass heating
system. The emissions of the respective heating systems were calculated with the life-
cycle-analyzing software GEMIS. The following graph shows the specific reduction of CO -
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equivalent emissions in kilogram per MWh heat output. The partly large variations are
due to different boiler capacities, technologies and heat demands.

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Figure 1: Specific reduction of CO -equivalent emissions in kg per MWh heat output.
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Source: FJ-BLT

The reduction potential of a biomass heating system depends on the type of fossil fueled
heating system which it is compared to. The average CO -equivalents-reduction for all
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described biomass fuels range from 330 kg/MWh to 410 kg/MWh. If all case studies are
realized and the fossil based heating systems are replaced by the described biomass
systems, total emissions of 19,016 tones CO - equivalent emissions can be saved yearly.
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Conclusion and recommendations:

The statistical data on biomass consumption for heating or cooling especially in
households are rare and old. For an effective energy policy and to check developments
and expected impacts of energy efficiency measures, a regular data collection is very
important. There are a lot of ongoing activities to improve the data availability on
European Member States level, but currently not available.

Cooling with biomass is currently competing with air conditioning systems powered by
electricity. Decentralized systems for cooling with biomass are at present not marketable
and competitive.

The fuels costs are the factor with the highest influences on the total costs. Even the
investment costs of fossil fueled boilers are cheaper than for biomass boilers, the specific
total costs of biomass fueled variants are in nearly all cases lower.

Regarding to emissions, biomass fuels and fossil fuels based heating systems show a
clear difference. Depending on the type of fuel and boiler, the potential of emission
reduction (CO -equivalents) ranges from 90 % up to 98 %. Regarding emissions, it is
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always worth to replace a fossil based heating system by biomass.

The use of biomass for heat production has a huge potential to reduce emissions
especially in the non ETS (EU Emissions Trading System) sectors, such as agriculture,
transport, residential and some industry. As the case studies have shown the economic
aspects are depending on the development of fuel prices. With an increasing price for

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fossil fuels in future, biomass based heating and even cooling systems will become more
competitive.

Currently government support schemes play a decisive role. Some countries offer grants
for activities to improve the energy efficiency of buildings and for investments on
biomass based heating systems. These financial support schemes help to close the gap of
investment costs between fossil and biomass based heating systems, so that an
economic benefit arise beside the ecological advantage of biomass heating.

The increasing use of biomass could also raise the problem of scarcity of raw materials.
Especially woody biomass is also in great demand for a number of material utilizations
such as the wood particle board and paper industry. A future challenge would be to
acquire unused woody biomass resources and agricultural residues for energy production
as well as for material utilization.

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2 Introduction and purpose

Work package (WP) 6 of the EUBIONET III project is dealing with the potential and the
aspects of biomass use for heating and cooling. The following chapter of this summary
report is introducing the topic of the WP and gives an overview, which aims and
objectives are pursued in the line of WP6.

2.1 Aim of EUBIONET III WP6

The overall aim of the work package is to describe the role of heating and cooling with
biomass in the European Union. Due to analyses of national and European statistical
data, the current status of heating and cooling with biomass and the availability of data is
pointed out. Based on these analyses and on results of other projects recommendations
are derived.

Another aim of the WP is to give an overview of the technical possibilities and the state of
the art of heating and cooling with biomass. A description of the major producers for
small scale heating technology should give a picture of the market. The most important
manufacturers of biomass boilers in the respective countries of the project partners are
presented with a short description of their company and products in a producer
catalogue.

A very important aim of the work package 6 is to compare the costs of different heating
systems. Therefore case studies are provided, to show the costs, when a fossil heating
system is replaced by a biomass heating system. These case studies describe best
practice examples and give an overall picture of the different heating situations and cost-
differences between fossil and biomass fuels in European countries.

A major topic of the case studies is the emissions of the different heating systems and
the reduction potential of biomass fuels. The case studies include calculations of
emissions in CO equivalents and the reduction, when the fossil based heating system is
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replaced by a biomass heating system.

2.2 Biomass for heating and cooling

The use of biomass for heat production in Europe is getting more and more important
and the share of bioenergy made of biomass within the renewables is increasing. One of
the main reasons therefore is that it can easily be transported, stored, traded and used
with several applications at the time and place, where energy is needed.

Approximately half of the total final energy demand of EU 27 is used for heating. In the
year 2008 about 11.9 % of the energy demand for heating was covered by renewable
energy sources. Of the 564.7 Mtoe total energy consumption for heating, nearly 67.8
Mtoe was produced by renewable energy. The EU 27 consumes about 55.1 Mtoe of
biomass for heating, including wood, wood waste and renewable municipal wastes. These
data are based on the results of “SHARES”, an initiative of Eurostat and Member States
to improve statistical data.

The shares of biomass use for heat production in EU 27 countries are varying. Countries
like Sweden, Finland, Austria, Germany or Latvia have a high share of biomass use for
heat production, because of the traditional use of wood fuels in households and

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industries. While in other countries like United Kingdom or Ireland, the share of biomass
for heat is slightly increasing the last years [Roubanis et al. 2010].

There is a multitude of applications to change biomass to energy. Heat appliances range
from small scale stoves for room heating, to boilers of a few kW and multi MW boilers for
industry and centralized district heating. Especially the use of woody biomass for
centralized heat production observed a considerable increase within the last 20 years, as
Figure 2 shows below.

Figure 2: Heat derived of biomass in EU-271

Source: EUROSTAT

The development of direct use of wood for heat production was characterized by a light
increasing over the last 20 years. But in comparison with other renewable, like solar heat
and biogas with about 1100 ktoe or liquid biofuels with nearly 580 ktoe, woody biomass
is still the most important energy source for heat production in European countries.

Figure 3: energy consumption of wood for heat production in EU-272

Source: EUROSTAT

The bioenergy balance sheet from Eurostat is showing that households and services as
well as industry are the major energy consumer of biomass. In 2008, the EU was
consuming nearly 98 Mtoe of biomass. As the graph below shows, nearly 1/3 is used for
electricity, combined heat and power plants (CHP) and DH. The rest is used in
households, commercial and industrial sector, mainly for heating purposes (Figure 4).

1 Roubanis et al.: Renewable energy statistics, Eurostat, statistics in focus 56/2010
2 Roubanis et al.: Renewable energy statictics, Eurostat, statistics in focus 56/2010

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Figure 4: energy consumption of biomass for heat production in EU-27

Source: Renewable heating & cooling (RHC) European technology Platform, EUROSTAT

The biomass production is a decentralized market and includes a large potential for rural
development. Beside this fact, it could help to reduce energy demand from imported
fossil resources. The use of biomass for heating purpose replaces fossil fuels and
therefore reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The reduction potential could mainly
be realized in non ETS (Emission Trading Scheme) sectors, where mandatory targets are
not so easy to enforce. The non ETS are the households, service and transport sectors.

2.3 District heating and cooling in Europe

The actual developments in the district heating and cooling sector are major influenced
by European regulations. The Energy and Climate change package and the so called 20-
20-20 targets, as well as the national implementation of the targets have effects on the
district heating and cooling sector.

The following chapter gives an overview, how the district heating and cooling sector has
developed and which data are available.

Since 1999 Euroheat & Power is publishing every two years the “District Heating and
Cooling Country by Country Survey”. In this report, detailed data about district heating
and cooling of 29 participating countries are included.

Heating:

New connections to district heating networks and an enlargement of the floor space
served by district heating could be observed in every participating country.

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