27-29 Sep, 2010 - Jakarta, INDONESIA
Grand Hyatt Jakarta
Grand Hyatt Jakarta
Want to know what you can look forward to at the Biomass Pellets Trade Asia conference in Jakarta on 24-25 September this year? This useful review of the recently concluded Biomass Power & Trade conference should help. Penned by Conference Chairman, Dr Martin Junginger (pictured left) from Utrecht University and IEA BioEnergy Task 40, the review outlines important information and insights retrieved from the Rotterdam conference. The global meet welcomed top biomass industry decision-makers, regulators and researchers from over 30 countries, and led to the creation of the spin-off conference Biomass Pellets Trade Asia.
Biomass Power & Trade Conference, Golden Tulip Hotel, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, March 11-12 2010
The first conference on biomass power & trade was organized by CMT Singapore with support from IEA Bioenergy Task 40 and the Port of Rotterdam. At this conference, biomass industry decision-makers, regulators and researchers from over 30 countries convened in Rotterdam to obtain industry updates and to exchange ideas and explore collaborations with the key stakeholders in the global Biomass industry. An overview of the 160 participants is shown in figure 1:
Figure 1 Overview of participants at the Rotterdam Biopower & Trade conference,
Electricity from solid biomass is expected to play a vital role in achieving the 20% share of renewable energy in the EU by 2020. Despite the huge growth potential, the industry is not without its own set of challenges, key amongst them feedstock supply. The success depends, to a large degree, on the quantity and quality of biomass available, and on the industry's ability to cost-effectively transport, handle and utilize biomass for energy production.
The conference had invited a panel of Biomass Power producers, Biomass producers, Traders, Key European regulators and technology experts to discuss the EU’s pending bioenergy mandates, sustainability issues, certification, global biomass trade, and upcoming technologies.
In one session, a number of large European utilities currently cofiring biomass for power (Essent, Electrabel, and E.On) presented their experiences from the past years and future ambitions. Both Essent and Electrabel are already co-firing (largely-imported) biomass for a number of years, and presented ambitious scenarios for future increase of biomass co-firing for power generation.
In another key session, the possible global supply of solid biomass was discussed with speakers from five continents, providing an overview of biomass use and export potential in Australia, the Baltic States, Brazil, China and Canada. Especially in Australia, the Baltics, and Brazil, the large future potential of dedicated energy crops for exports was highlighted. Based on both demand projections and possible supply, the Port of Rotterdam displayed future scenarios in which the European wood pellet demand increased to 130 -200 million tonnes, of which roughly 30% could be traded and trans-shipped internationally.
Other topics discussed during both days included the role of pretreatment technologies such as pyrolysis and torrefaction (and how they could facilitate long-distance trade), the financing requirements for international biopower value chains (and how a biotrade equity fund could bring about such investments), and the interaction of biomass and CO2- markets.
On both days the ongoing development of sustainability criteria for solid and liquid biomass was heavily discussed, with two speakers from the European Commission and several experts from Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. So far, the European Commission has only defined mandatory sustainability requirements for liquid biomass, and only recommend that individual member countries develop similar voluntary criteria for solid biomass.
One of the remarkable outcomes of the discussions were that the large-scale users and traders of solid biomass largely would support the introduction of EU-wide mandatory sustainability criteria for solid biomass in order to avoid mushrooming of different national systems.
Figure 2 Roundtable on sustainability criteria and certification systems for solid and liquid biomass
Day two was finalized with a session on bio char, including an overview of the current developments of biochair soil sequestration (as an alternative to energy use), the concomitant environmental challenges in biochar production and soil/water applications, and the possibilities to develop new materials from biomass through hydrothermal carbonization.
Next to the presentations, the conference also provided ample opportunity for networking for the participants, for example during a 2 hour cruise on the Maas river through the port of Rotterdam.
Figure 3 Networking whilst cruising through the Port of Rotterdam
In summary, the conference provided an excellent overview of ongoing developments and future trends in trade and use of solid biomass for electricity production, and highlighted the issues that the industry will have to face in order to further develop this market successfully.
