On the possibilities for co-firing biomass with coal for power generation in the EU

Other conference contribution, 2008

The European Union aims at an enhanced use of bioenergy. Co-firing biomass with coal represents an attractive near-term option for electricity generation from renewable energy sources (RES-E). The purpose with this study is to assess the near-term technical potential for biomass co-firing with coal in the existing coal-fired power plant infrastructure in the EU27 Member States (MS). The technical potential for RES-E from biomass co-firing amounts to approximately 50-90 TWh/year, which requires a biomass supply of approximately 500-900 PJ/year. The national biomass supply potential is considerably larger than the estimated biomass demand for each MS. However, actually meeting the possible co-firing biomass demand will require a substantial increase compared to the present primary production of biomass in many MS. The implementation of biomass co-firing will be influenced by e.g., the availability and cost of different biomass resources as well as related transport and handling issues, the development of policies and competing options. Longer term, the biomass co-firing potential will be influenced by the development of carbon capture and storage. In the future work the RES-E generation from co-firing will be compared to the RES-E targets for 2010. The possibility for biomass import by sea will also be indicated.